People of The Meadow
by Muffins Planned
Summary: Katniss has to do whatever it takes to protect herself and her family, whilst trying to deal with the heavy burden of being a growing young woman in a country that demands more than she is willing to give. A few years in Katniss' life. Prim wasn't reaped for the Hunger Games.
1. 74th annual Hunger Games - Chapter 1

**Title: People of The Meadow **

**Summary**: District twelve wasn't just starving, and being a young woman in a forgotten district is far from easy. Prim wasn't reaped for the Hunger Games.

**Longer summary: **When Prim wasn't reaped Katniss never volunteered for the Hunger Games, leading to a completely different future for not just herself, but for everyone. Katniss now has to struggle to survive in the district of the starving, and learn how to cope with being a young woman in a place where women have it tough. Trying to navigate through her life dealing with what life throws at her, the changes in her district, the changes in her own life and those lives around her, she must fight hard to keep herself and her family afloat. Sacrifices must be made, and some things are unavoidable.

**A/N: **This story will be centered a lot around Katniss growing up, so it's a coming of age story. With some violence, death, sex, grief, sexism, and other mature subjects. I will warn you of them as they happen. It's a look into the district 12 that Katniss was still too young to see before the Hunger Games in the book. I'm being completely frank with the fact that this WILL be dealing with mature subjects, not as far as the reader requiring to be of a certain age, but it might require some maturity to be able to understand and grasp some of them. I base this world on how the world has looked in the past when it comes to poor and dictatorial nations.

I MUST MENTION that the opinions reflected through this story does not always reflect my own. There is blaming for mental illnesses, and other things that would be spoilery to mention. But please, bear in mind that shaming opinions and such in the story do not reflect my own, and if you are very bothered by it this is the warning I will give.

This first part is short and concise to set the ground work for the rest of the story.

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_**You cannot put a fire out;  
**__**A thing that can ignite  
**__**Can go, itself, without a fan  
**__**Upon the slowest night.**_

_**- **_**Emily Dickinson**

**74****th**** annual Hunger Games / Prologue**

The square is quiet as the door shut in front of them, containing the two tributes of the 74th Hunger Games; a thirteen year old girl named Raven Gabriel, and a sixteen year old boy named Peeta Mellark. Raven had been crying up on the stage, but Peeta only stared at the ground in front of him. The chances were not big that either one them would never look upon this square again, never see a familiar face again.

Katniss stood still on the square, safe and sound, watching the closed doors for only a moment before she sprung into action, desperate to find her younger sister Prim, who was closer to the stage with the younger girls. When Katniss found Prim she was crying, tears streaming down her face as she explained that the girl who had been chosen had been her classmate, she had turned thirteen just two days before, meaning that because of her bad luck she had her name entered an extra time. Then they would never know if she had taken any tesserae for her family. One extra name slip for a meager supply every month of basic grains that kept them alive another year. Katniss had her name in twenty times, she had tesserae for herself, her sister and her mother for each year she had been in the hunger games. It was twenty seven times less than her hunting mate, and nineteen more times than her younger sister Prim.

Though she knew it would be of little comfort, Katniss pulled her sister into a tight hug, kissing the top of her head. That was when she caught Gale's, her hunting mate, eyes across the square. He was safe, it was his last reaping, he would never have to compete in the hunger games. She was jealous, jealous that he could breathe out that sigh of relief that it would never be him. They wouldn't ever stop worrying though, not until all of their siblings were out of that bowl, and it would be six years until Prim was out, and fourteen until all of Gale's siblings were safely out of that bowl. Too long. At least she could go to bed that night knowing she'd never see him die on a television, and that all of them were safe for another year at least.

Peeta wasn't, though. Peeta had saved her life years ago by tossing her bread when she and her family were on the brink of starvation, almost dead. Her father had died, and her mother had been catatonic, not moving from her rocking chair in front of the fire. After that day she had taken to the woods to hunt, but she'd always remembered the debt she had to him, a debt she would never be able to repay now that he would be lost in the arena. District 12 hadn't had a winner for twenty-four years, not since Haymitch Abernathy, the constantly inebriated man that would only stray into town if he needed more alcohol, won the second quarter quell, and she didn't believe he was much of a mentor to those kids after having seen forty-six of them die, one after another.

She thought about going to visit him, but knew that he wouldn't have much time to see his family, and she'd rather him have his time with his family than to waste it with a guilted thank-you. She decided that she would let him have his time with them, and try to convince herself that it was the way she would say thank you to him. Although he would never know.

It was because of this she would never be able to have kids, she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she brought a human being into this awful place, and then have the risk of watching the child be sent away and risk to be slaughtered. She didn't understand how people could bring children into this world, why people didn't stop. Even if they didn't have a choice in the games, they did have a choice in bringing children into this world. Gale had said he might've wanted kids in the woods earlier that day, but after the reaping she understood his desire even less. Even in a world without the games, it would still be a world where the risk of the games starting again. It had been once, the idea and the option was there, and it wouldn't leave anyone's mind.

Gale walked over to them, now carrying his four year old little sister Posy in his arms. Since he was working long hour shifts in the mines, and hunting during the weekends, he had gotten strong and the muscles were bulging underneath his blue shirt. The smile he wore lit up his whole face, and Posy was giggling as she held on to him with her arms around his neck.

"Finally out of the bowl," he said, still smiling brightly at her. She smiled back, thinking she had never seen him smile so genuinely before, like he had something to live for now. And he did, he finally would be able to plan ahead for the future, for his life, without having to worry about becoming a participant in the hunger games.

"Must be a relief," I said, though my mind was still on Peeta, the boy who saved my life but would probably not live to even see seventeen. I was the one who had the odds against my favor, I was the one who was starving to death at twelve, who had my names entered so many times, not him. The odds were against him, he was picked despite the fact that there were people standing next to him that had their names in that bowl over fifty times. It shouldn't have been him, it should've been someone else, someone like Gale. But Gale, for once in his life, had the odds in his favor.

"Huge," he smilesd "you should come over for dinner tonight, mom is doing her stew, to celebrate." She nodded quickly, thinking about the last time she had tried that stew. She had barely been thirteen, and it was to celebrate Posy's second birthday. Back then Posy had been chubby cheeks and huge smiles as she would crawl up in your lap just to get another hug. Of all babies she had been around Posy was the only child she thought was cute. The stew was luxurious by district twelve standards, Hazelle, Gale's mom, told her that originally it was made with cow's meat, but it was far too expensive now so she would use rabbit, which was fine with Katniss.

"I will," Katniss said.

"Bring your mom and Prim too, if we add one of your rabbits in the stew we'll get more meat."

They walked out of the square, Prim under her arm hugging Katniss' waist, and Gale walking close to the two of them towards his siblings. Rory had already made his way back to Hazelle, Vick and Posy, he was hugging them with a relieved look on his face. While boys and men in the district often boasted about their masculinity, no one ever blamed a boy for hugging his mother after a reaping.

"Congrats Hazelle," Katniss said in a low tone after Hazelle had hugged and kissed her son Gale twenty times, tears streaming down her face. It was something to celebrate, something to congratulate; your child never entering the hunger games. Hazelle offered a warm smile back, reaching her hand out to stroke Katniss' cheek.

"Soon it will be you we are celebrating," Hazelle said, then kissed Katniss forehead. "You will be bringing your family to dinner tonight at our place, right?"

"Yes, and I'll take an extra rabbit with me."

The hunger games were an odd event that had the districts both hating and fearing the Capitol, and cheering on other people's death so that someone from your district would be coming back. That night after dinner the TV sparked to life to show the reaping from that day.

District one and two had their usual career tributes that burst towards the stage volunteering without question, and the same happened in four. But the other districts the ones who walk up to the stage were on the verge of crying, or too shocked to show any emotion. Most of the tributes were above fifteen this year, aside from twelve's 13 year old tribute, and a small little girl from district eleven. At least it wasn't like the year when all but the career districts had tributes under fifteen, that year had been particularly rough to watch, Katniss thought.

When they started commenting about who they thought would win, they all turned away, their morbid fascination had been sated, but Gale was shaking his head, unable to contain his anger. While he may have been out of that reaping bowl, he still had three siblings that weren't out of the woods yet.

As Gale started going on about the unfairness of it all, in a quiet tone so it couldn't be heard from outside, Katniss started to think about Peeta again. Seeing his face on the TV being reaped again, and then stepping on that train, had brought back the guilt. She wished there was some way for her to repay him, but she would never be able to. Maybe she could add a coin to send him something during the games, but it still wouldn't be what would ease her guilt. It wouldn't be eased unless she told him in person. She didn't like owing people, and she wanted people to know when she was giving back. She was wishing she could tell Gale about it, but it was a complicated story, a personal story, one she wanted to keep to herself even more now that he'd been sent to his death.

When the screen went black Prim was half asleep in her mother's arm, as was Posy in her mother's. Katniss and Gale both carried them to a small cot at the far end of the room, so that they could sleep undisturbed, and then the two of them went outside, walking towards the hole in the fence without having any intention of sneaking out when it was dark out.

"Katniss," Gale said suddenly when they were outside of hearing distance from the front porch of his house. She stopped to look at him, expecting him to start talking about the capitol, or expressing relief of how he would never be sent there, but instead he was looking at her with a burning gaze, it captured hers and didn't let her look away.

He didn't say anything for a long while, just letting her name hang in the air like a sigh, before he stepped closer towards her, taking her hand in his.

"I know you don't want a family, but maybe you'll consider a life with me, the two of us… it wouldn't be so bad, would it?" His voice was shaking as he spoke. "I think it would be pretty good, once you're out of the bowl," he added.

She stared at him, confused about what he was saying, about what she wanted because she had never once considered this before. A life with Gale wouldn't be so bad, she thought, they would be able to provide for both their families, and she would have him as a constant companion without worrying someone else would come and sweep him away. She did not have feelings for him though, not like the ones married couples should have, but maybe that was because she never allowed herself to let her thoughts drift, drifting thoughts could be dangerous.

"Yes," she said awkwardly before she could think any further. His eye widened, he had not expected her to say yes, he had expected to have to ask her again later on, after her final reaping. He'd been planning on letting her see how good of a match he was for her, and then ask her again.

"Yes?" He didn't wait for an answer before he hugged her close, closer than Katniss had ever been hugged. It was her first real hug from a man, and it felt nice, like a warmth spread through her. The kiss he placed on the top of her head made her feel so warm inside, so she thought that this must be right, no other decision could have been right.

Surely it must be right, Katniss thought.

Raven died within the first few minutes of the game, but Peeta survived three days before the boy from district eleven killed him. Both of their deaths are quick, and it's all you can ask for in the games. No one really cares for the winner, the district two boy, and when Raven and Peeta return in casket with a drunk Haymitch, few have the energy for tears. Their burials are somber, Katniss tell everyone that she's going for Prim, so that she could say goodbye to Raven, but Katniss goes to say goodbye to Peeta. He was too good for this faith, and his goodness showed through in the games. Neither Raven nor Peeta died killers, and the districts comforts itself with that. The winner of the games was responsible for ten deaths, the most of all in this year's hunger games.


	2. 76th annual Hunger Games - Chapter 2

Thanks for all of the reviews, follows and favorites. It means a lot to me. I'm publishing this a little earlier then I had intended, I'm planning on doing an update once every 5 days or so, but I wanted the actual story to begin and be out there. I do have to say that it is a bit hard to write a fanfic of THG based in the same universe as the books (and movies) because in my eyes they follow a very logical story-line, so I have a hard time coming up with other realistic story-lines that would be able to take place. So, this is what I came up with this one. Where Prim wasn't drawn in the hunger games: what happens then?

Something else I want to say is that this is the first longer fanfiction story I have finished in a very long while. Almost four years or so. And I've just "recovered" from a big writer's block that happened due to... stress, life changing events and all those fun things. Anyway... I'm not overly fond with the way this is written, but I do like the story very much, and I hope you will too. It will be somewhere between 10-15 chapters long. I haven't really devided the story up in chapters yet. Some will be very short, some will be quite long.

Hope you enjoy,_ and welcome to the:_

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**76****th**** annual Hunger Games**

Katniss was running late for the reaping, which was a death sentence in itself. The fence had suddenly turned itself back on while she was out hunting that morning, and it had taken a while before she had found a tree to climb so that she could jump over. When she had landed on the ground she twisted her ankle, but despite that she hurried back to her house to change in a dress, and then ran towards the square. The pain would pass soon, she figured, it wasn't a sprain. It was her last reaping, and though she didn't want to get her hopes up, she was relieved that it was only this one time left. She would have to worry for a few more years though, for Prim.

She reached the table to sign in just in the nick of time, hurrying over to the fenced off area where the oldest kids stood. She thought about six years ago when she stood up front all alone, watching Effie Trinket in her strange costume up on stage, was trying to stop her legs from shaking. She didn't remember who was drawn that year, it was easier to forget it. Dwelling on it would ruin you.

Effie Trinket puts her hand in the bowl for girls not long after Katniss found her place in the crowd. Katniss begs quietly that it's neither her name, nor Prim's. It isn't, it's Bonnie Kluun, a Seam girl just one year younger than her. That's when the relief hits her; she will never be in the games, neither Gale or her would be in the games. In the middle of her relief she almost misses the boy's name that's called.

Rory Hawthorn.

Her stomach lurched, threatening to let this morning's breakfast come up again, as she watches Rory walk up towards the stage. It's scary how much he looks like Gale when he was sixteen, she thought, scary how much he looks like a man yet those eyes told her he was still the same boy he was two years ago. Rory's eyes sweep over the crowd, drawing in a deep shaky breath. Katniss looks back at the crown behind them, finding Gale, Hazelle, and Posy crying as the people around them seemed forlorn about what to do. It happened every year, yet every year people were still as unprepared with how to deal with the relatives.

When Katniss reached Gale afterwards, just before he was about to go in to say his goodbye to Rory, she begs him to tell Rory to win, he has to win. Gale only nods.

That night, as the recap of the day is showing in the background at the Hawthorn's, Katniss sits by the table staring at the bread she had traded two squirrels for with the baker. The baker was Peeta's father, and she could still see the read around his eyes from crying. Before he had closed the door he told her that he wished her all the best today, since today was the reaping. She wondered now if this family would ever recover from losing Rory, because there was always a risk he would never come home again. There was a risk that the last time they would see Rory, in person, was up on that stage looking down on them with fear in his eyes.

She got up from the table, crossing the room and going outside to where she knew Gale was sitting. He had his back towards the door, sitting on the steps up to the porch, but didn't look to be crying. Both of them were still dressed in what they had worn at the reaping - she wore her mother's old blue dress, and he wore his nicest brown pants and a white shirt that was starting to look more yellow than white. She sat down next to him, looking down at the socks that were peeking out of her boots, she could feel a toe sticking out of a hole, and knew she would need to fix it tonight when she got home.

"I'm sorry Gale," she whispered, trying not to let the tears fall. Gale only nodded, without any kind expression on his face. "I wish I knew what I could do," she said.

"Come with me," he said then, suddenly standing up holding his hand out towards her. To not make him even more upset she took it without questioning, and followed him towards the forest, and despite it being dark they slid under the fence and out into the dark forest. They knew the forest so well that they didn't worry about getting lost, even though they couldn't see much. She never let go of his hand, and he didn't stop walking until the reached a clearing.

"When the games are over, even if he doesn't come home… will you marry me then?" He was facing her, staring down at her face, tracing a small line down from her forehead to her chin. When Rory's name had been called he hadn't expected to feel this way, feel so fiercely protective about the people around him, the people he loved. Right now he wanted nothing more than to Katniss to be protected by a marriage, so no one could touch her. He knew how men talked about unmarried women, and he knew what they did to them. During his longs shifts in the mines it was always a favorite subject amongst a few of the people he worked with, and there was nothing he could do about it. They were in higher ranks, and complaining would mean he'd lose his job.

"Gale…" Over the passed two years they had talked about this, and she had told him that she would always be his companion, but marriage wasn't in her plans. Of course it scared her to think of Gale with another girl, but it scared her even more to give her devotion to someone else. It was yet another thing the Capitol had the ability to tear apart.

"Please," he begged her, and even though she couldn't see his face so well in the moonlight, she could hear the tears in his voice. "Please." He pressed his lips to hers in a tender kiss, and it was as if electricity passed between them. Though they had kissed before, a quick kiss only a few weeks after the 74th hunger games, it was nothing like this one.

Katniss quickly drew a long breath, filling her lungs with air to make herself think more clearly, but when he pressed his lips against her again, she couldn't stop it, stop herself. She kissed back, throwing her arms around his neck, with his arms around her waist, hugging her into his chest. His lips were soft against hers, moving softly with a slow burning passion and desire, yearning to hold her closer and never lose sight of her.

Gale had felt desire many times in his life, and often Katniss was the source of his desire as he watched her use her bow with such confidence all he wanted to do was kiss her. He'd also felt a less than appropriate desire towards her, but it was something he couldn't help. Katniss was beautiful, inside and out, he wanted her and just kept on hoping she would want him back.

Katniss had never felt desire before, so when it assaulted her in the kiss she couldn't curb it. It took over all of her senses and she didn't want to let go of it. It felt right, with his arms around her and him kissing her like they would see no tomorrow. She felt loved, wanted, and it made her want to get closer, get to him

Without warning, and without breaking their kiss, he picked her up as if she was as light as a feather, carrying her over to a rock where he sat her down. They touched each other like they hadn't touched another person before, and Katniss' skin felt like it was burning, and Gale moaned as if he was finally relieved of a long aching pain.

He brushed against her breasts, and when she sighed in approval, pushing her breast into his hands he grasped them softly, causing her to moan this time. It felt wonderful, but at the same time like something was missing, there was more she needed from him, she needed him closer, to satisfy that urge within her that was driving her on and telling her to tug on his shirt, to get it off of him.

"Katniss," Gale sighed against her lips when she started to unbutton his shirt, but instead of allowing her to continue he grasped her hands, resting his forehead on hers. "Katniss, as great as this is… we can't." She groaned in disapproval, and he caught the groan with his lips, silencing it. "I know."

"Damn," she said under her breath. Her loins were aching with desire, but her head was finally beginning to think rationally. What they were about to do could have put them in a very bad situation, and even though school didn't teach much about it, they knew that children were conceived from sex.

"I know," he said again, adjusting his pants slightly. When Katniss realized what he was doing she quickly looked away with a blush on her face. Only moments ago she was about to undress him, and now she blushed at him adjusting his pants. Desire was a powerful thing, she remembered to have heard sometime ago from someone in the district. She had never understood just how much it could carry someone away.

"Will you marry me?" He asked again, his breathing still uneven, standing much closer than before.

"Okay." She didn't have the will in her to refuse him. Marrying him would help a bit, she figured. The capitol granted a newly marry couple a house to live in, and some grains, which would mean that their siblings would have one less tesserae to sign up for this year, and it would give the two of them a few more rights in the district that unmarried men and women couldn't take part of.

The downside was that people expected children to come from a marriage, and otherwise they would question the legitimacy of the marriage. They could cross that bridge when they came to it, and right now there were only positive things about marrying Gale, the number one being making him and both of their families happy.

The next week they begrudgingly watch the games, watching Rory's entrance in the chariots, waiting for the training scores with unease and biting at their nails. Posy takes up a permanent place in Hazelle's lap, and besides the momentary joy for Katniss and Gale's upcoming marriage, it's quiet in the Hawthorne house. Rory earns an 8, which is impressive for the district twelve's usual five. It gives them a little hope, which plummets as they watch the interviews.

Most of the tributes are older than Rory, which at any other year would have given Katniss comfort to know that no young children would take part of the games. This year when Rory was in she had hoped that it would only be the careers that he would fear. But both nine through eleven have eighteen year olds that look positively lethal. None of them volunteered, but it was just horrible luck that it happened this year. Rory was big for his age, too, but he was still two years younger.

The day the games started Katniss went over to Gale's early in the morning, before anyone had gone up, and crawled into his bed, hugging him. He woke up with her next to him, stroking his cheek gently. She was sure she loved him, she really did, and it hurt so much to love a person going through so much pain. She hoped that she would never understand the pain he was going through, that she would never have to see Prim go through what he had to go through. She had four years left in the bowl, and she would do her best to make sure her name was never pulled.

She had never seen him cry, but that morning as he looked into her eyes and realized what day it was, his whole face contorted into a soundless scream as the tears fell from his eyes. She hugged him closely and held her hands over his ears, shielding his face as the TV sparked to life in the corner of the room She heard the count down, wishing she was holding her own ears as the gong rings, and the sound coming from the TV was everything she didn't want to hear. She could hear the desperate cries, the cries for pain, the cries of fury, metal against metal, and then it all seemed to blur together with her tears and the crying from Gale.

It takes an hour before it quiets down. But we all know that the TV will stay on until the games are over.

She still holds Gale to her as she glanced over her shoulder to peek at the screen to see who died, to make sure it wasn't Rory. She sees Hazelle curled up with Posy and Vick on her bed, just as she was with Gale, none of them looking at the screen. She took it as her duty to keep them informed, she would look for their sake, so they wouldn't have to. She watched the faces that fill up the screen and she's surprised when she see a district one girl and a district four girl come up on the screen, and the commentators make note of this odd occurrence, saying that there might be a change this year. Katniss hopes to herself that this is the case, waiting with a baited breath for the count of dead tributes to end and that Rory won't be in it, and that Bonnie would make it too.

She lets out a long breath when the count stops at the two district ten tributes. Eleven total dead, in just an hour eleven children were murdered on screen. As the screen starts to pan out over the arena, which appears to be a mountain, Katniss lets out another breath, releasing her hold on Gale's ears. Rory was a great climber, so hopefully it would work to his advantage. It meant that he had a chance. With his 8 in training, and this arena, there was a chance, a small one, but still a chance.

Gale and her lie in bed for another hour, until both of their stomachs starts to rumble from hunger, and she suspected that Hazelle and the kids were just as hungry. Letting all of them stay in bed for a while longer she got out of bed and headed towards the stove. She lit it up carefully, and then opened the cupboards to get the oats out, and some raisins. She poured it all into a saucepan with water and let it slowly cook together for a steady breakfast. The raisins were a luxury, even oatmeal for breakfast was a luxury by the standards of the Seam, but it was a day where this family deserved to have a little luxury.

"Thank you Katniss," Hazelle said to her when she pulled the pan off of the burning flame. Katniss only shrugged in reply, because despite the hunger games happening every year, no one knew how to react to it. People knew how to react to death, regardless of the age of the diseased person, but no one knew how you could offer words of comfort to a person that might see their loved one be slaughtered on the TV at any day. When a person died in the district there were ceremonies that were held, traditions, and from them people knew what to expect. The capitol took all that away from them with the games.

They all eat breakfast quietly, the commentators were speaking, as they would do for most of the day since it was the first day. When they mention Rory's name everyone's eyes immediately flutter to the screen, despite not wanting to look, but he isn't in danger. He's sitting behind rocks on a ledge in the mountain. No one is too close to him, and it looks like he will have a good shelter for the night. Hopefully that meant something good, she thought.

The rest of the day passed quietly, and the gamemakers were happy with the death toll that day, so they let the tributes rest. Instead they spent doing a play-by-play of how the blood bath had gone. There were plenty of gory deaths that they could talk about to keep them sated for a while. Because of this Gale allowed himself to go out into the woods with Katniss, and found the clearing quickly, but neither thought about hunting, neither of them wanted to hunt right now, they just sat on some rocks, staring out at the forest that stretched out in front of them.

"I wish we could run away," he said with a scowl on his face. "I thought about it all morning, taking mom and my siblings and just run away"

"They'd catch you," she said, just like she always said when he was thinking about running away. They had seen the boy and the girl being pulled up by a hovercraft years ago, most likely because they had ran away. That could happen to them, and Katniss didn't want to think about Gale with a spear through his body.

"I know," was all that he said in response, and decided to change the subject to something that made him at least a bit happy. "We can get married in two weeks, they're building new houses by the edge of the seam closer to the train station, so we would probably end up living there."

"We would be too far from our families then, and too far from the woods," she immediately protested.

"It's better than nothing, Katniss," he said. It was better than nothing. "I don't want to move away either, but us getting married would mean that I would get paid more, it means that I could do less dangerous work, and the most important… that no one will be able to get between us."

Neither of them wanted to talk about the unmarried young women in the district, and the maltreatment they were subjected to by the men. Her mother had always sheltered her from it, but the past year she had witnessed it when one of her classmates had been attacked verbally on the streets for being unmarried. Though Katniss knew she hadn't seen the worse of it, not when she saw the glimmer in their eyes as the young girl started to cry from the abuse.

All of her life she had believed that the only horror that existed was what the aCpitol inflicted on the town, but seeing people in town act the way that they did, and get away with it, made Katniss realize that it wasn't just the Capitol that made this district what it was, the people in it played a part in it, too.

"We can't let our families down," he added, when he saw that she was beginning to accept it all. It was true, she thought, they couldn't let their families down when this was the only thing that had made them smile. Their marriage was something hopeful in all that was grim. At this moment Rory could be dead, or dying, and because of that Katniss couldn't deny their two families anything.

"Okay, in two weeks." She nodded.


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you for all of your reviews! They mean so much to me, I cannot even explain how happy it makes me to see other people enjoying what I do. I've had a really rough road back to writing, and wasn't feeling so confident about this story, but you have eased my worries. At least somewhat, hehe. Anyway, I'm publishing this a bit early because I've decided on a new posting schedule: **Mondays and Thursdays**. This will be kept to my best ability. I'm job hunting, so if a job or two happens it might get a little... shaken up.

This chapter contains sex and death. Doing my best to keep it at the 15+ rating that is the highest rating fanfic dot net allow.

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It had been four days since the last time they had been in the woods, and sealed the date of their upcoming marriage. That same day they had went to the justice building to put themselves up for one of the houses at the edge of the Seam, and with that the date of their wedding. People outside of the Seam didn't understand how they could decide to get married while Gale's younger brother was in the games, but those in the Seam, those who had lost the most children to the games, and family and friends to hunger, they understood the need for life to continue even when death was imminent in a family.

That day was when they caused an earthquake in the arena, and about two thirds of the arena disappeared in it, pushing them all together. Five days, eight tributes still alive, they wanted it to end soon. There hadn't been a death in over twelve hours, they were growing bored with how things were going, and nothing was keeping them entertained while waiting for deaths.

Most years there was something interesting, in their opinion, to follow. Like how a tribute manages to hide, a special talent, deception amongst the careers, but with only two careers left there wasn't much to follow there. This year, however, was just about brutality and strength. Most of them were large and strong, preferring close combats to long-range ones. Maybe they would call this year's game boring, in the Capitol, when the tributes were equally eager to engage in battle as the capitolites are, it would be over quick then. No challenges to get them together, no creativity. Except for the earthquake.

Rory was still alive, hiding in the mountains when the earthquake hit. Gale and Katniss were skinning squirrels when they heard the sudden blast on the TV screen. Both of them looked up, and saw large parts of the arena collapse, and quick shots of all the tributes running from the mountains and down to a field. There was a quick glimpse of Rory, trying desperately to get down from the ledge he had been camping out on during these days, but falling off of it because of the shaking. He disappeared from view and instead they showed a girl from eleven running down the hills.

Katniss and Gale looked at each other, color draining from their faces as they just realized what they might've witnessed. That could have been Rory's death, not from fighting, not an honest death, a death by gamemakers growing bored. Bile rose in Katniss' throat, and Gale was fighting his tears. Quickly she got up and walked around the table, sitting down in his lap and hugging him close to her, allowing him hold her for comfort while they waited to see if their fears were true. The cannon wouldn't have been heard, the blasts from the earthquake breaking the mountains were too loud.

The earth quake lasted for about five minutes, and by the end of it there were only four tributes left alive, three killed by the quake, the boy from five died from a slit throat when he ran into a girl from two. Rory wasn't one of the survivors.

The day after Rory's death was when the victor was announced. The girl from eleven won, a victor no one saw coming. People from the Seam passed sad glances towards the Hawthorn house, and towards them wherever they went. Even though they wished the world would stop for a moment to let them grieve, feel the pain, life did not stop.

The Hawthorn family was in pieces, after having lost both their father and brother, husband and son, every second was a painful reminder that there was so much missing. Gale wanted to lie under covers for a week, just to conjure up one last image of Rory, one more memory to hold onto for dear life, but life continued and he had to go down into the mines everyday. Down in the mines he would sometimes feel relief for his little brother, who might have been old enough to understand the struggles of the district, but too young to have experienced most of it. He wouldn't have to spend even a day down in the mines, he was supposed to start after summer, so eager to help out with everything, with food and money. That was when Gale's heart would break, because he would remember Rory's eagerness for life, to do things, and now there were so many things he would never be able to do.

Gale hoped that Rory died without regrets, but within his heart he knew that there was probably a lot of things Rory wished were different when he died.

Three days after Rory died his casket arrived to district twelve, a simple casket painted white to be lowered into the ground in the tribute cemetery. The white stood for sacrifice and honor, which they were trying to trick them into believing that a tribute was about. The casket would be Rory's last resting place, his last prison which he would never escape. Sixteen years old was too young to die, and Katniss thought of Peeta lying in his grave just a two spaces away from Rory. Neither of them deserved such a faith, both of them were pure, willing to sacrifice themselves for the wellbeing of other's, Peeta saved her life, and Rory was one of the people who saved her heart.

Like most burials in the district it was only family present, and Katniss and her family. People wanted to care more about the deaths of children, but if they did it would break them. The cemetery for the district was filled with children who had died from starvation before their fifth birthday, so when a sixteen year old died in the games people were content that it wasn't a young child that had died. At least the boy got some of a life, before he died. They were all sad, but they couldn't let it get to them.

Life continued, even though all they wanted to do was lie down on the ground and cry, they needed food, they needed money, they needed to survive.

Katniss and Gale hunted after Rory's burial, hoping to clear their minds with the fresh air in the forest, and the sounds of birds chirping in the trees. It let them escape, but not completely. Gale had an image of Rory stuck in his head from when Rory was six years old and trailing after him like a puppy. Then it had been annoying, today he would have given anything to get that back.

Afterwards they went to trade their game, and most of the people in hob were very generous, this one time, with their trading. They got soup stock for some berries, a bag full of coal for two squirrels and a bag of grains for one squirrel. At the baker's they got three loaves of bread for only one squirrel, and before they walked away from the door the baker stopped them.

"I know you're getting married in a few days," the baker said, and Katniss and Gale nodded in unison. "I want to make a cake for you, not out of sympathy but because I know it's what Peeta would have wanted, he… he had a soft spot for you, a big crush." The baker laughed sadly at the mentioned of his dead son.

"I don't think…" Katniss started, but was cut off by the baker.

"I will make it anyway, and then it's your choice if you want it or want to let it go bad." They both knew that Katniss would never let food go bad, not when people were starving, not when her family was going so hungry. "I think your little sister would love it." Katniss would never deny her sister a treat.

"Thank you Mr. Mellark."

"It's nothing," he said, tears in his voice. Before much else could be said the baker closed the door.

When they got back to the Hawthorn's house Gale cleaned three squirrels for all of them to eat while Katniss heated up the stove with some of the coal they had traded for that day. The house slowly started to warm up, and Posy peeked out from under her covers, smiling at Katniss. Posy may only have been six years old, but she knew just as well what had been lost, yet her childlike wonder kept the worst of it from biting into her, making it possible for her to shine light onto the family.

It was late June when they had their toasting, it was after a long day at the justice building where they waited in line and had to sign documents and were read rules and regulations, benefits and requirements. It was exhausting for the both of them, and their heads started swimming with all of the information. The only thing that stood out for Katniss, that caused her blood to run cold, was the requirement of a child. Some way she hoped that they would be able to get out of that, claim that she was unable to bear children, something. They would figure it out, she thought. They always did.

Their house was small, with a bedroom upstairs with two beds, a small wash room downstairs, and then a kitchen with a table next to it. It was very similar to the house that they had grown up in, and they had expected nothing less. It wasn't falling apart as their houses were, this one stood steady still.

On the opposite wall of the kitchen was the fire place. She put in the coal and some logs in it, and Gale then lit it as she spread a blanket out on the floor, Greasy Sae had sown it for them with the help of many people in the Seam giving patches of fabric for it. It was a thank you, from many, for brining in affordable meat into the district, for finding herbs for medicine and a condolence over Rory. Her throat tightened when she remembered what a mother had said to her when she got that blanket. She was only a few years older than her, carrying her toddler on her hip and her rounded stomach told her that by wintertime she'd have another baby. With a smile on her face the woman had said "that will come in handy when you have your child." She couldn't tell them that she had no plans to have a child, that would be against the law, so instead she had just smiled, and given the blanket to Gale that admired it carefully.

While Gale made sure the fire got going properly she brought the bread out of the bag, remembering the cake that they had gorged on before they went to the justice building earlier today. Prim and Posy had stuffed themselves so full that they had gotten nauseous, it had been a lovely cake, just perfect, and Katniss didn't regret agreeing to it at all.

They both sat down on the blanket, listening to the crackling of the fire, then Gale tore a peace of bread off of the loaf, put it on a metal stick and held it over the fire. She took a hold off of it, too, her hand over his, looking at him instead of the bread.

She couldn't believe that she was married, that she married Gale. He'd turned twenty just a few months ago, and she turned eighteen just last month, time had gone so quickly that she felt forlorn. Things had changed so much, and Gale had changed the most since the hunger games this year. After Rory died it was like he'd given up, the fire and passion had died in his eyes. No longer did he rant about the Capitol, or how we would be better off running away. He'd given into the fact that his life wasn't his own. He was resigned. And she'd noticed that, she'd noticed that he moved much more quietly, talked more subdued, and observed more than talked. She hoped that it was the grief, that he would return to his old self eventually. It would take a while, grieving could take a long while, but eventually you found yourself staring at something that resembles your own self in the mirror again.

When the bread was toasted, both of them smiled at each other, tore it in two pieces and quietly ate it as their bodies grew warmer in front of the fire. It was in the beginning of summer, and the heat was stifling during the day. They wouldn't need to light another fire until fall, and the fire they had started now heated up the already warm house a bit too much. It didn't matter to them, the sweat running down their forehead and backs, they were used to seeing each other like that out in the woods.

He smiled at the thought of her out in the woods, with sweat collecting at her brow that was furrowed, aiming her arrow at a bird flying by. The first time he noticed just how pretty she was he had been sixteen and she had just turned fourteen. Back then it was a harmless crush, but it would haunt him, and he'd start imagining how her lips would feel like against his, how it would feel like to brush his hand across her cheek. Slowly the imaginary would turn to something that would make Katniss blush, would he ever share it with her. It wasn't something he was proud of, but the thought of touching the more intimate parts of her caused desire to course through his veins, and beg him to try to see if she would ever feel the same way.

Without saying anything he leaned over and kissed her softly. This was what he wanted to do four years ago when he'd seen her walk over to him in the woods, and was suddenly struck by how beautiful she was.

"We're married," he said, his eyes still closed and his forehead resting against her. A smile spread over his lips.

"Yeah," Katniss answered. She knew he was happy, but she was just mostly scared. Marriage scared her, the duties of marriage scared her. There wasn't much of a choice for people in the district, especially not for young girls. Marriage was necessary, given, a woman who wasn't married was looked down upon. She was different, wrong, and wasn't doing what was necessary for the district. Ever since they were kids they'd been told that marriage and children were essential for a districts well being, to bring riches to the district, and for the approval of the state, a district that has children is a district that has potential. Without marriage there is no way to control child bearing, and without child bearing the district would die out.

"I don't know if you know it Katniss, but I really love you," he said and kissed her again. He didn't need her to respond because he knew Katniss. Katniss wasn't a person who was attuned to her feelings, she needed time to process, time to understand and time to come to a conclusion.

She was slow to respond, but didn't object. It was natural that he loved her, and she knew she loved him too, but she did not know in what way. The four years they've known each other and been friends had naturally caused a bond between the two of them which was some kind of love. It was the love shared between friends, love that a family shared, and maybe in that love that two lovers had for each other. The way he kissed her made her forget the world in a way that no one had ever managed before. It made worries, fears and obligations shrink and disappear, in a way that was addictive, enticing and dangerous. Forgetting meant making decisions which would impact them in a way that neither was prepared to deal with.

His kisses did the same thing, this time too. It woke up that yearning inside of her, one she had not known existed before, a need to be sated. She felt the tickling sensation low in her belly, the anticipation grew as he touched her, pulling her into a hug. They were hot from the fire, and another fire that grew inside of them.

He pulled at her lip gently, holding her tighter, brushed his tongue against hers as she gasped. The tickling sensation became a knot, begging her to pull him even closer, that it was the only way to untie it.

They both lowered themselves down to the floor, laying on the blanket they'd been given as a wedding gift. His mouth traveled down her throat as one of her hands tightened in his hair and the other pulled his shirt higher, grasping at his lower back. One of his hands held her close and the other pushed the skirt of her dress, the blue one she'd wear to the reaping, higher up her thighs that on instinct spread wider as he settled between them.

The low moan that escaped her throat surprised her, it sounded nothing like her, and for a short moment it brought her back to reality, before his hips pushed against hers, and reality disappeared once again.

Never before had she felt this alive, felt her whole body, been so acutely aware of how the fabric of his jeans brushed against her legs, the feeling of his fingertips brushing her ribcage, his lips finding hers again. She pushed her hips against hers, trying to bring back the feeling he'd given her when she'd done that. He moaned this time.

He pushed her skirt up higher, pushing it up over her stomach, and as he kissed her feverishly he trailed his hand into her underwear, caressing the soft curls before touching her just where she needed it the most. It startled Katniss, she had never been aware of her sex before, aware of the feelings and pleasure it could give her, and as he touched her there she threw her head back, unable to speak, or think, all she could hear was her breathing, she was breathing as if she'd been running, as if she could not get enough air into her lungs.

"Oh," she whimpered, pushing herself into his hand, begging that he wouldn't ever stop, holding his head tightly to her chest neck where he was kissing and licking at her skin. She couldn't think, she didn't know what she wanted, she wanted him so, so bad. "Gale."

"You're so warm," he whispered into her ear, his fingers still touching her. "I love you." He kissed her, swallowed her moans as they grew louder and came more and more often until she fell over the edge silently, mouth falling open and eyes tightly closed. It was far from what she ever could have imagined possible, far from what she had ever experienced before. She hadn't known this was possible, that this was why people risked it all, everything.

After, he held her close, hugging her to his chest as they lay before the fire. It was too hot, but neither of them minded. She felt him against her thigh, his desire. She sighed, wondering what they'd do now. She was starting to think a bit more clearly, able to understand that they were very close to risking everything.

"I'm sorry Gale," she whispered as he pulls her against him, putting her leg over his hip, and pulling her head against his chest.

"Why are you sorry, Catnip?" The smile in his voice made her smile.

"We can't do more, not unless we find out a way to not risk me getting pregnant," she said. He just smiled at her.

"I wouldn't dream of that Katniss, we won't do anything that can risk it," he whispered. She wondered then how they would look like to anyone watching them. Their hair messy, her dress bunched up at her waist, her leg draped over his hips, his hand resting low on her back, and the obvious bulging of his pants. She remembered waking up once in the middle of the night, she must have been about eight years old, and she had looked over to her parents' bed and saw her parents make love. It wasn't strange, she had seen it many times before, but that time she'd noticed the way her father looked at her mother, the adoration and bliss that radiated from his face, and it was that look she could see begin forming in Gale's eyes. Gale resembled her father in many ways, in his large built, the dark hair and grey eyes, how sure he was of himself, his sense of duty and need to protect, his love for his family.

She took a deep breath, breathing in his sent, and something else, something she hadn't smelled before. It was a heavier scent, and she couldn't quite place it.

"I just…." She blushed, and gestured awkwardly to his pants region. His laugh in response was low.

"There are other ways to take care of that… if you want to," he said. She chewed on her lower lip before she nodded. If she could make him feel how she did without risking her getting pregnant, why wouldn't she want to help with that? "Here…" He took her hand in his, and put it on top of the bulge, pressing down slightly. His eyes closed. "Are you completely sure, Katniss?"

"Yes," she whispered, she knew he'd heard her by his sharp intake of breath. He took her leg off of him, before slowly unbuttoning his pants, watching her reaction as he did it. She watched with anticipation, not quite sure what was going to happen.

She had seen naked men plenty of times, they had been brought to my mother after mining accidents, or other accidents in the districts. She had seen a penis plenty of times, but she had never seen a penis during an erection. From how it'd felt against her thigh it was bigger than most of the men's she'd seen, but she was sure she had heard somewhere from the gossiping girls in school that they became bigger when boys turned on. It was big, which let off an alarm in her body because she knew that it was supposed to fit somewhere she didn't see it fitting. But if a baby could fit through there, why wouldn't that? Still, she winced inwardly at the thought.

"Here…" He took her hand again, guiding it to him and making it grasp around it. He held his hand above hers. It was warm, she thought, and soft and hard at the same time. He squeezed a bit harder than she would have done if she decided, it looked fragile. "You… do it like this," he said, his breathing labored. He guided her hand up and down, twisting and turning a bit. It wasn't too complicated, she thought, and after a while he let go, falling back with his face buried in his hands, releasing a low groan that started twisting that knot in her stomach again.

She listened to his moans, adjusted the speed and pressure sometimes to see how he'd react. She watched him, watched his face contort and relax, watched his mouth pucker, fall open, how he'd look down at her touching him, and then look at her like he saw straight into her soul. She kissed him then, an opened mouthed kiss where his hands wound up in her hair, messing up the hairdo her mother had done this morning for her even more. Then, with a jerk of his hips and a moan into her mouth she felt something wet on her hands. She paused what she was doing and looked down. The white fluid was all over her hand, on his yellowing shirt and some spots of it on her blue dress. It was warm, and seemed impossible to keep from running off of her hand and stain his pants further.

She let out a laugh at the sight of it. They hadn't thought this one through, and now both of their clothes were ruined.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked lazily, pulling her in for a kiss.

"There's white stuff everywhere," she said. He looked down and groaned.

"Shit." He pulled his shirt off and then his pants, leaving him completely naked in front of her. "I'll get a towel so you can wipe that off," he said and walked away. It was the first time she had seen him completely naked, she thought. She watched as the muscles in his back and legs relaxed and flexed as he walked, unable to help the knot that twisted again, despite the fact that not so long ago she had given into it and let it have what it wanted. She sighed.

The semen, she thought as she looked at it, looked harmless, but it was capable of ruining both of their lives. She watched her hand as he got a towel out of the bag of clothes and necessities they had brought with them and gotten as a moving in gift from the capitol. It was nice enough of them, after having threatened them with their lives for six years. If they hadn't managed to be married for more than four hours before doing this, she wondered how they would manage years without having sex that risked a pregnancy.

In her mind she knew that at some point they would risk it, and the only thing she could hope for was that she was unable to bear children. Her heart still hoped that they could avoid it, though. This, what was on her hands, was the danger.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Sorry for this chapter. I haven't looked over it much, not feeling in tip-top shape so this is what goes. I've done maybe half of it. This chapter contains sex, mentions of violence.

* * *

After a few months Katniss found that marriage wasn't all too different from being friends with Gale, except that they lived together, ate together, and slept next to each other. With his working schedule he rarely had the energy to stay up more than an hour after he'd gotten home, so there wasn't much time to fool around like they did the first day they got married. It happened sometimes, mostly on Sundays which was his day off, after they had gotten back from the woods and left food at their respective families' houses. With Rory and Gale out of the house there were far less mouths to feed there, and Prim had managed to get an apprentice job at the bakery, which brought in a little money for the house. Because she looked like a merchant people weren't as uncomfortable with her working there. It put a bit less stress on Gale and Katniss to get enough food, but they still needed to hunt regularly so that everyone would be fed.

Though Katniss didn't like to admit it, she had begun to crave Gale's touch. Sometimes just a hug and breathing in his scent caused that knot in her stomach to rear its ugly head. She liked even less to admit that she was craving a different kind of touch, that she was wanting more. It scared her, but she couldn't help it. She started to wonder how it would feel like, and that would have her thoughts spiraling out of control.

The days she let her mind wander were the days when she pounced him as soon as dinner was over, and instead of talking she'd lead him upstairs and they'd make each other feel good, and he'd fall asleep afterwards. He claimed that those were the nights he slept the best. She'd wonder if he'd sleep even better if they went further.

It was a Saturday when she was on the way back from the woods, carrying five birds, a squirrel, a rabit and some apples in her satchel, when she started to feel like she was ready to burst. No matter how many times Gale and her made each other feel good it still didn't satisfy her. Maybe it was something biological, she had no idea. What she did know was that it was driving her insane.

Like every time after hunting she went to the Hob, she hoped that it would give her some distraction. She knew her mother needed wool and Hazelle needed coal for the cold weather that was predicted to come any day now. She traded two birds and the rabbit for wool, and the squirrel for coal. She sold some apples for a few coins before she stopped by Greasy Sae, but on the way she was stopped by the girl from her wedding, still very pregnant, but this time without her toddler.

"Hi, Katniss, how are you?" Without waiting for an answer she hugged Katniss awkwardly, her belly in the way. "It's Susy, I don't know if you remember me."

"No, I remember you," Katniss said. How could she forget the person who reminded her of the fact that she may be forced into motherhood on her wedding day?

"How are you?" she asked again.

"I'm good, how are you?" She didn't want to say it, but her very pregnant stomach caused her heart to want to take a leap out of her chest.

"Well, being pregnant sucks so that says it all." Susy laughed at herself. "I didn't want another kid, but my husband was being a jerk and here I am." She rolled her eyes.

"A jerk?" Katniss furrowed her eyebrows. Had her husband raped her, and was Susy really joking about it so easily in the middle of the hob? If anyone found out what her husband had done, he'd be in trouble.

"He didn't pull out, so I got pregnant." She smiled sadly. "Unfortunately that's what some of us get, jerks for husbands."

"Pull out?" She felt like she was just repeating what Susy was saying, but she didn't understand it.

"You know, before he comes, it's a way to prevent getting pregnant. Don't you know this?" Katniss shook her head. "Do you want to get pregnant?" Katniss shook her head again. "How about you follow me back to my house and I'll explain everything to you," she said hurriedly, "it's not something I can talk about here…" Both of them looked around at all of the people surrounding them people who could eavesdrop and rat them out for trying to prevent getting pregnant.

She followed Susy back to the Seam, walking slowly because, as Susy explained, pregnancy made you slow, and with a head pushing between your legs it was hard to walk without a waddle. It was awkward for Katniss, because the whole way Susy talked about her pregnancy, about the horrible nausea and how to cure it, and the first time she felt the baby kick, and how painful kicks to the ribs were, and that her bladder seemed to be constantly full when she was pregnant. It made Katniss want to be pregnant far less than before.

She didn't live too far from the Hob, to Katniss' great relief. Another relief was that as soon as they got inside Susy stopped talking about her pregnancy, mid sentence.

"I'm sorry for that, I just didn't want anyone to know what we would be talking about, and that's basically the only think I know that I can talk about for a long time." Susy hurried over to the stove and put on some hot water. "Want some mint tea?" Katniss nodded.

The two of them waited for the water to boil in silence, and then over tea Susy explained to Katniss how she and Gale would be able to have sex without risking pregnancy. She said that before Gale comes he has to pull out, so that nothing gets inside of her, and if they do that they have a big chance of avoiding pregnancy. She still stressed that Gale had the power, unless he pulled out in time they wouldn't be able to avoid pregnancy. That was what happened with her husband, after a while he decided that he couldn't be bothered to pull out. She was bitter when she said it, she really resented him for getting her pregnant again. She knew she'd love the child, but the risks of being pregnant and giving birth were big, and it was hard enough making everything work with one child, let alone two. Katniss was certain Gale would never do something like that. The two of them both wanted to avoid pregnancy, and she knew he respected her. He'd never do something against her wishes. Especially not something like that.

She'd talk to Gale about it when he got home, but before then she tried to waste sometime with her sister Prim, plucking the birds and carving them into files to divide for everyone. Hawthorn's would get a bigger portion because they were three, and smaller one for Prim and her mom, and a slightly bigger that her family's for her and Gale. Gale worked long shifts and needed to eat properly. Without eating he wouldn't manage down in the mines, and if he couldn't manage, he couldn't work.

She left her mother's a little after four, and then stopped by Hazelle's quickly, leaving a few files and the coal she had traded. Hazelle knew she would get more the next afternoon when both she and Gale had been out hunting.

By the time she got back to their house it was past five, but Gale wouldn't be home for an hour. While she started with food, thinking about what Susy said. If Gale knew when he was about to come, then they would be able to do what they wanted without risking pregnancy. After months of being close to throwing caution to the wind and giving into their desires regardless of the risks pregnancy, it was a welcome idea. Though, it did scare her. She was a virgin, and she was afraid that it would hurt. They hadn't been taught about it in school, but there had been talks about it on the school yard. She hadn't ever gotten involved in those conversations, believing she would never have sex, so it didn't matter to her. Now she tried to remember those conversations that she had eavesdropped on, where they said the first time hurt, that there could be blood, and it wasn't very pleasant. It perplexed her, if it hurt and wasn't pleasant, why did people keep doing it?

If she had a better relationship with her mother, she would talk to her mother about it, but ever since she had moved out she only saw her mother once in a while, and even less since one of the merchants in town got sick in the summer and needed constant care. The only time she had seen her mother was when she dropped off herbs that she had requested through Katniss' sister for her to pick. How much had she missed by not having her mother to talk to? And talking to Hazelle made her uncomfortable, she wasn't her mother, and it was her son she was sleeping with. As much as Katniss loved Hazelle, love didn't make her more comfortable.

When Gale got home she had weighed the pros and cons of trying what Susy had suggested, and come to the conclusion that she trusted Gale so she would try it. She wouldn't have married Gale if she didn't trust that Gale respected her, and did what was best for her always. He said hello, and immediately went into the washroom, as he always did to wash off the worst of the grime from the mines. The dust of coal was everywhere, and had seeped into their house, and she found herself covered in coal dust. She didn't mind, though, she had grown up with it and was used to it.

"What are you cooking?" he asked when he walked up beside her.

"Soup with some meat from birds I caught today." She smiled up at him. She'd talk about everything with him after dinner, they would continue their usual routine, and then she'd asked what he thought about it. So she pulled the pot off of the stove and filled two bowls with it, one bigger than the other. Gale talked about his supervisor at dinner, apparently he had gotten a badge of honor from the Capitol because the productivity of coal mining had been good the last six months, it had nothing to do with the supervisor, but he got the credit. It had apparently put halt to all kinds of anti-Capitol talk in his working group, with the threat of a whipping if anyone spoke badly of it.

District 12 had always been lenient with the rules, it was the reason they were able to go hunting in the woods. If this was a sign that the district were becoming stricter with the rules, it was definitely a bad thing. The two of them could at any moments notice be dragged off to execution for hunting in the woods. But they suspected it was just a supervisor that had gotten a big head and maybe a threat from someone to instill fear with the workers. It was common for the men in the mines to let off steam by ranting about the Capitol when they were deep under ground. Working so long hours anyone would feel the need to let out some frustrations.

They washed their plates after dinner, then silently moved upstairs, as if he'd read her mind. Up in the loft they didn't need to talk, he kissed her shoulder and undressed her silently, touching her soft skin and trailing his finger along her ribs that poked out a little less after the summer. The summer had been good to them, both of their families. They had food, an income. It made the loss of Rory a little easier to bear, but knowing that he didn't get to experience that summer would make them sad all over again.

"I talked to Susy Boyle today," she said as he kissed along her collar bone. He hummed in reply. "She told me about a way we could… have sex, without me getting pregnant." He stopped.

"What?" he asked.

"You just need to pull out in time," she said. "I don't know why we didn't think of that before…"

"I've heard people at work talk about that, but I don't know Katniss, I hear it takes a lot from a man to be able to do that." He looked at her wearily.

"I trust you, I know that you will not get me pregnant, I know you." She put her hand over his heart. "I've thought about it all day and I know that you wouldn't fail me, I love you." She kissed him again. He didn't protest, deepening the kiss with a low moan.

She had learned his weak spots long ago, learnt where to kiss him to elicit that low groan that targeted that knot in her stomach and twisted it around, learnt that kissing low on the left side of his throat drove him crazy and would never fail in making him flip her over and grind his hips against hers. He'd taken the time to figure her out, too. He knew that touching her inner thigh would make her look at him like he'd stolen her prey, if he nibbled her ear she would whisper obscenities.

Sometimes they were hurried, unable to wait for the release, other times they would do it slowly, caressing each other like they were pieces of art. This time they didn't know what they should settle for, a slow or a quick, if it was just go or if they needed to wait. She knew she wanted him, badly. For a long time she had wanted him, and she didn't feel like waiting.

While his fingers were close to bringing her to insanity if she didn't have her release soon, the knowledge that she could have more made her stop him. Her body needed and craved more than this, and she wasn't going to deny it this time.

"I need you," she simply said, and watched as his eyes darkened. He would be lying if he said he hadn't had sex before When he was sixteen he was seeing a girl, and they were foolish. Both of them were lucky she didn't end up pregnant, and that fear made him wait until now, for four years, for Katniss. He knew it would be worth the wait.

Quietly he settled between her legs, both looking between them, nervous and filled with anticipation. This was what people talked about, Katniss thought, she would experience the one thing people risked their lives for.

Gale kissed her, his soft lips reassuring her, and himself. They both wanted this. Then she felt him against her, pushing against her and into her. With a groan from him and a grunt from her. It wasn't very painful, she thought, but it was uncomfortable. She hadn't felt so full, ever, so close. The only pain was the slight stretching.

"Are you okay?" Gale whispered, holding himself up above her by his elbows. She nodded, though her eyes were clenched shut.

It didn't start feeling good for her until after a while, when she had gotten used to the feeling. It was then she felt exactly what her body had been craving, the need being sated. The friction was amazing, and she lost track of time, of herself and of everything. She wanted to hold on tight and never let go. It wasn't until he pulled out and spilled his seed over her stomach that she was brought back to reality, but he quickly chased it away with his hands, pulling her to an orgasm she wouldn't forget.

The next morning when they woke up they smiled at each other, and though there was a small ache she wanted him again. She didn't understand why people ever stopped, until he started to push into her and she winced at the pain. She realized that she may have escaped the worst of the pain the night before, but she was a bit sore today.

To make their day productive, as intended they headed off to the woods, they were going to try to catch enough to last most of the week and so they could trade for food that lasts longer in the winter. They needed jarred food, tried and pickled food, salt to keep the food they made from going old. Life continued just like it had before, only that now they had sex. Real sex.

Winter came, cold and traitorous. During winter they often found their way to their parents' house, huddling up with them for added warmth, and because they missed them so much.

Katniss would hunt as often as the weather let her, but the electric fence had started to turn on more often. The last time it had turned on was two weeks ago when she had been wading through the snow, just about to crawl to grab onto the fence and crawl under it when she heard the faint buzz of it. Had she been less attentive she would have missed it. Definitely not one to risk her life getting back in, she had to walk along the fence, trying to find a part that wasn't electrified, or somewhere she could climb over. It took close to half an hour for her to walkthrough the snow with her backpack filled with game before she found the tree she usually used to get back in again. Since the last time she got stuck outside she had only been able to get out five times, all the other times the fence had turned on.

Her mother, and Hazelle were worried about it, they all were. It wasn't much they could do about it, but Hazelle offered her a job as a washer woman alongside her. It would bring in some money, but they would live far from as luxuriously as before. They worked out that she could work four shifts a week, two of them alongside Hazelle, which would give Gale and her a decent enough income to support and feed themselves if the fences turned on permanently. It could expand to more hours if Hazelle got the word out that she had extra help, which would means she would be able to expand her clientele.

That winter was the first winter she found herself outside of a merchant's side door, in the freezing cold holding buckets of laundry, handed to them through the door so that they wouldn't be able to come in and warm themselves. They carried the buckets three blocks into a steam room where it was scorching hot. In there they scrubbed the clothes clean, hung them up to dry and then repeated with the rest of the clothes. It was a process that took several hours. Katniss had washed clothes before, but not even close to the quantities that they collected at the merchant's houses. Both her and Gale owned only about five pairs of clothing, so whenever they washed clothes it was only two of their pairs, towels and the sheet off of their bed. Not five pairs of clothing from each member of the house, sheets from each member of the house, along with towels, scarves and other things she had no idea what they were.

The first three weeks she worked with Hazelle on her days, learning the route, how to wash the clothes, how to hang them, when they needed to be returned to the house, which door to knock, who to ask for, and so on. At some houses they were nice and simply just handed the clothes without much to say, but at other houses they would always voice suspicion, say a warning that they know what they put in there so there wouldn't be any point in stealing.

Katniss liked the mayor's house the most, just like the mayor was kind when she brought him strawberries, he was kind when she picked up and left his clothes. He was the only one who was the head of the household that came to the servant door to give the laundry over themselves. In all other houses the maid came with the clothes. She sometimes wished she was a maid in his house, she thought that it was probably the only person she could stand to work for. Hadn't Hazelle been able to offer her a job, she would have probably had to seek out a maid position, but she probably would have ended up being throw out, and received a bad reputation amongst all of the merchants in the district, and thus being unable to get a job anywhere for them.

Winter crept on, and the fence stayed on for over a week in the middle of December, foreboding something bad. Most wouldn't be able to tell the difference now, since few ventured out so far as to the fence, but those that did and came face to face with an electrified fence more often did so with a feeling of dread. For years twelve had been seen as a small harmless district that didn't need much protection. The district had stayed at the same level of habitants for years, growth restricted because of the high mortality rates. Just that week three children and eight adults had died from the cold weather, so any kind of rebellion started wouldn't come from twelve. However, the newfound interest in twelve was disturbing to Katniss, and she and Gale spent their nights talking about it.

After attempting to get through the fence for a week she decided to make one last try for a while, lacing up her boots and dressing in as warm clothes as she could she headed out towards the fence. It was a much longer walk than it had been living with her mother. To get there she had to walk through most of the Seam, passing many houses were children were sitting in the windows with pale sunken cheeks and faraway looks in their eyes. Some houses children were happier, better fed, those were the houses that made her sigh in relief, knowing that there were children that had it alright, at least.

Her cheeks were already rosy and cold when she reached the fence. A meter in front of it she stopped and listened, a normal day she would have been met with nothing, but these days were far from normal. A faint buzzing sound could be heard from the fence, and when she threw a rock that she had picked up from the ground on the way at the fence it sparked. Most definitely it was on, and there was no way to get through unless you had a death wish. Once word got out that the fence was on there would probably be many people who would go there with just that intention. Death.

She walked back to the Seam, defeated and empty handed. While they managed okay now with their meager salaries, they wouldn't be able to handle any hurdles thrown at them. It made her thankful, once again, that it was only her and Gale in their little family. For now they didn't have to care for their parents, with them still being young and able, and their siblings were starting to be able to take care of themselves, except for Posy who was still only six years old.

Back at their house she stared at their small supply of coal, sighing because winter was only halfway through. They usually warmed a brick in the fire and put it under their sheets to keep warm at night, lying close to each other absorbing body heat. It was always hard to decide if they should wear clothes and keep warm, or lie naked next to each other. Most nights they stripped of their clothes, holding each other clothes. Those nights were the bearable nights, when they didn't wake up in the middle of the night either too hot or too cold. After a while they always did so, except when Katniss was bleeding, because she felt uncomfortable being naked during those periods.

During summer her periods had regulated because they had eaten more, and she had managed to put on some weight. It was still regular, though she expected it to become less now that the fence was on. The weight that had made her stomach a little softer was slowly starting to disappear, and it was another thing she felt uneasy about. Though now she could breathe easily, knowing that for now her body was content, because of the slow aching cramp in her lower belly.

As the day grew to an end she started boiling some potatoes and heating up soup stock, it wouldn't be much of a dinner, but it would keep them full. The clock passed the time Gale was usually home, and she started to grow worried. Outside of the window she could see men arriving home to their wives, they were about the same ages as her and Gale, having married at about the same time. In many houses the women stood by the door, some of them were pregnant. They gave their husbands a hug and caressed their cheeks before letting them into the house.

In this part of town there weren't children running around yet, there would be plenty of them soon enough, but back at her mother's house she knew there were children running up to their fathers in the snow, jumping up into his arms. It brought life to the neighborhood, and while she wouldn't wish a single child to be born into this, she missed the noise.

She saw the neighbor walk by, but instead of walking to his house next door he walked up the steps to theirs and knocked heavily on the door. Katniss was weary, they had never knocked on each other's doors, only talked to his wife Lys out in their yards when hanging the laundry, or when they ran into each other while doing errands, and she had rarely spoken to Lys's husband Poller.

When she opened the door he was quick to open his mouth.

"Your mother said to tell me that Gale took a whipping today, and he's at your mother's house," he said quickly.

"What?" It was the only questions he could get out.

"I wasn't there, but I heard his supervisor didn't like some things he said, so he sent him to be whipped." His face was apologetic, and worried. Whippings were rare here, and if one man got one the fear started growing in all of them, fear that was enough to keep men in line for a while.

Without answering she quickly threw on her boots and clothes, running past Poller on the steps in front of the house and through the snow towards her mother's house. The snow made it hard for her to run, she had only ran for five minutes when her legs already felt like led. Even if she hated walking slowly, it was the only way she would get there. It took almost fifteen minutes before she saw her mother's house, with smoke blowing out of the chimney.

Inside of the house she immediately saw Gale lying on the kitchen table face down, his teeth gritted tensely as her mother cleaned the wounds from the lashing. It was less severe than she had feared, but worse than what she had hoped. There were around twenty gashes and around ten angry red marks from the lashes. Quickly she rushed up to him, taking his hand in hers and squeezed it tightly.

"Katniss," he breathed, a relieved look on his face.

"Poller came by," she said, giving her mom a glance, a wordless thank you. "What happened?" She tenderly stroked the hair out of his sweaty forehead, watching his pained face.

"I talked badly of the capitol," he said through gritted teeth as her mother cleaned one of the deeper gashes. "Got five whips as a warning." He chuckled grimly.

"Gale," she breathed. "What did you say?" He didn't answer her, only shook his head. "You'd think they would give you some room to be bitter about them," she said.

"Katniss, no one is allowed," he said. She knew she wouldn't get an answer out of him, so instead of pressing it further she took a chair and sat down by his head, watching her mother carefully put bandages on him.

It pained her to see her husband like this. It had taken a while for her to get used to the thought of him being her husband, but with him lying on the table like this she was struck how dependent they were of each other, how much they needed the other, and just how deeply she cared for him. Any other person she would be sad for, and only be pained when they died, but for her family she was pained by anything bad that was inflicted upon them. Gale was her family, in every way, and she loved him in a way that she loved no one else. Her love for her sister was different, it was something linked and ingrained into her, it was like breathing, without her in her life she felt ready to combust, lying next to her in bed sleeping would have her heart soaring because she was so complete. She was incomplete without her sister. The love she had for her mother was conflicted, but no matter how much she resented her mother for what she had done, she still loved her, with a fierce protectiveness. With Gale there was something pulling her to him, an aching in her chest that didn't go away until she stroked his cheek or brushed by him as they got ready in the morning. It was an aching that could only be settled by his presence, his touch. When he touched her, her heart swelled, she felt happy with him. Different kinds of love, but none of them any less real than the other.

When he was bandaged he was given alcohol, to numb the pain. She knew he must have gotten a bit of it before, because some minutes later he was asleep and snoring. They would sleep here tonight.

An hour after he had fallen asleep Hazelle came to the house, having worked late hours to get all the laundry done today. She had wept over her oldest boy as he slept heavily on the table with drool dripping from his mouth. A side effect from the alcohol.

"Did he say why?" Hazelle asked her and her mother as they sat down by the fire. Vick was taking care of Posy for tonight, so she could stay here, too.

"Spoke badly of the capitol, we don't know what he said and he is unwilling to say it," her mother said. Either it was really bad, or he was too proud to admit why he got a whipping.

"Gale, he has always had a temper, I had hoped that after Rory… that he would calm it down a little." She sighed, leaning away from the hot fire to look at her son. "His father didn't help with that, he would always encourage bad mouthing about the capitol, and after the mining accident it got worse."

"He will be alright, Hazelle, just needs take it easy for at least a week so that the wounds heal properly," her mother said.

"You should probably come help me all week with the laundry then, Katniss, I know the money you get won't be enough to cover food for all of you, I'm trying to expand a little more but it's going slowly… hopefully by next winter you will be able to work full time," Hazelle said. "I know that eventually you will have children of your own, and the money you have now won't make it easy."

"Gale and I aren't having any kids," Katniss said quickly.

"Katniss, if that were a choice I wouldn't have had four of them," Hazelle said with a chuckle. That made her think of the fact that her mother was a rarity in the Seam with only two children, most others had between four and six children, some had many more.

"How come my mother only has two?" It was strange that she hadn't thought of that before, it was an oddity, after all, in the district.

"I lost many children while pregnant, Katniss, two years before you were born I gave birth to a stillborn son, it was hard for me to carry a child until birth, you and Prim were miracles," she said. Katniss thought, before she could stop herself, that she didn't exactly treat those miracles well, and almost killed them, too. "I meet many women who lose their children in the womb, some of them I feel like I see at least once or twice a year, the poverty, hard labor and lack of food makes it hard for many to complete the pregnancies."

Despite the fact that it may have been strange, or even disrespectful, Katniss hoped that if her and Gale were ever to make a mistake, she would be one of the women who would not make it to term. But Gale and her had it down to an art, and there hadn't been a slip-up even once. She had been right when she ´thought that Gale would respect her and take her wishes into account. He did right by her.

"I didn't know that," Katniss said in a low voice. Her mother gave her a reassuring smile from across the fire.

"At the time he was alive I thought you were too young to know, and I knew that it was for the better… less children means a better ability to provide for them," she concluded. Katniss nodded, that was true.

They quieted after that, not wanting to talk about the children they'd lost, and instead listened to the crackle of the fire. At some point Katniss fell asleep on the soft plaid by the fire, and woke up hours later by Gale moaning as her mother redressed the wounds. Within seconds she was standing by Gale, holding his hand, still wobbly from sleep. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, she wanted to yell at him for sounding off about the capitol in front of the man that had grown to like and defend the capitol. It was stupid of him. Though she knew that the whipping was the thing she was mad at, not him. There shouldn't have been a whipping, at all. Whippings were rare in the district, and a whipping for talking badly about the capitol was virtually unheard of.

It took the whole night and most of the day before Gale was able to sit up again, though as the skin and muscles in his back tightened and relaxed he winced. It would take a long time before anyone would forget the look on his face, or the way his back looked. Katniss vowed to do what she could to prevent him, and her, from getting a whipping. That would mean giving up hunting indefinitely. It would make the two of them restless, but it was better to wait until they were sure that no one was watching them and that the whippings were gone. If the whippings were gone, so would the threat of being punished by death. It had always been a real threat, but with the state of the district few minded that they bent the rules.

Gale and Katniss stayed another night at her mother's house, but Hazelle had to leave in the early morning to go back to work, despite her broken sleep. Prim helped out, making sure that the more shallow wounds were healing properly, and that the deeper ones were properly dressed. For the first time she saw how carefully she and her mother dressed the wounds, that they picked different kinds of gauzes for different wounds. When Katniss asked why she took certain ones Prim explained that the wounds needed to breathe, but at the same time they needed to be protected from bacteria from outside, which meant that different wounds required different gauzes. Some needed more care, others could just be plastered together with tape. It was enough for Katniss to realize that she would never be able to do what her family did, she didn't understand it, or have a drive for it, at all.

By the morning of the second night Gale was able to stand and walk for longer periods of time without his back giving him too much trouble, so they would be able to walk home. The wounds had started healing properly, but would need to be redressed in a couple of days. Katniss' mom told Gale sternly to come back on Saturday, and they all agreed.

Getting back home was a slow process. Gale felt weak, and couldn't maneuver as easily because any stretch of his back would cause him to wince in pain. It took close to an hour, and when they were home he immediately collapsed on his stomach on the bed. They both knew it would take a while for everything to get back to normal, but they would get there. For now they would have to take it a day at a time, and hope that what happened two days ago wouldn't have any repercussions for them, or anyone else in the district.

* * *

**A/N: **again... I wanted to explain my reasoning on a few things. Specifically Katniss' mother having lost children. Unless I am very mistaken and mixing fanon with canon, Peeta's father was in love with Katniss' mother, and gave up hope when she fell for Katniss' father. I don't believe he would've married his wife until he knew for sure that Katniss' mother wasn't going to become his wife. Peeta has older brothers, I suspect up to 4-6 years older than Katniss and Peeta, which suggests that Katniss' parents were married for quite a few years before having Katniss, which isn't plausible in my eyes. Not in a district like 12, and certainly not when they were as poor as they were.

Also the "Katniss, if that were a choice I wouldn't have had four of them" comes from my mother. I said to her that I only wanted one or two children, to which she scoofed and said that you can't choose that. My mother's got 5 children ;) Anyway, hope that the errors that inevitably are in this chapter weren't too major. I'm having a difficulty keeping my eyes open, but wanted to post this chapter so... here it is!

Leave me a review with what you think and make my day! :)


	5. 77th annual Hunger Games - Chapter 5

Soo, here comes the 5th chapter. It's a bit shorter than the other ones, but I suppose it'll due. At least until Monday. Got some really great news today; I've got a job! After being unemployed since early August this is fantastic for me. It's only "hourly" so there's no telling how much I will be able to work. But it's work!

Also HG did great at the PCA, I can't wait to see the award show later when it pops up online. The pictures from Catching Fire has be fangirling like a 20 year old shouldn't do, and the date of the Catching Fire trailer? 94 days from now, or 3 months and 4 days, or April 14th if you prefer that kind of dating. Anyway, that day I will be jumping up and down on my bed. Gahhhh. Yes, fan girl = me.

_Hope you're having a good day!_

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**77****th**** annual Hunger Games**

From the sidelines of the reaping Katniss found a different kind of torture. They were standing at the front, staring at Effie Trinket as she animatedly talked about this year's hunger games. Since Gale's whipping the district had gotten tighter control, and one more man had taken a whipping last month for stealing. That man had taken far more whippings than Gale, and had been lying on her mother's kitchen table for almost four days before he was able to gingerly walk home. Along with the fact that the fence was on, and more peacekeepers were flooding the district, even when the hunger games wasn't going on, was enough for the people in the Hob to start closing down business. It would be a tough time ahead, and everyone knew it.

Not being at danger from entering the hunger games was strange, it was what her life revolved around for so long, and now she was standing by the sidelines. It would be three more years until she felt relief, knowing that Prim and Vick was out, but it would be twelve more before Posy was out. Posy was the baby of their families, and if she went in, their families would break, and they all knew it.

She couldn't see Prim or Vick where she was standing, but she knew the general area where Prim was, so she fixated her gaze on that spot, desperately hoping that it wasn't her name pulled that day.

Compared to the year before she had Gale's arms around her this time, comforting her. It helped her keep her heartbeat steady, so that it wouldn't beat out of her chest with worry. Last year she watched Rory die in the hunger games, and she wasn't ready to let go of her sister. Every year she worried that she hadn't shown her sister enough appreciation, that she didn't know just how much she loved her, and fearing that it would be too late to redeem that if she hadn't.

Other days she would have been distracted, and annoyed, by Gale's fingers stroking her arm, but not when Effie Trinket walked towards the bowl filled with girls. All three of them, Katniss, Gale and her mother, held their breath as Effie picked up a slip of paper with her long blue fingernails.

"Ember Halk!" A silence fell over the crowd, and somewhere towards the back of the girls fence in people started to move a little. "Ember Halk, please come up on the stage!" Effie said cheerily, and a girl from the last row appeared. Eighteen, Katniss thought, at least she was eighteen and not twelve. After she reached the stage Katniss was able to get a better glimpse of her. She knew her, knew of her. She worked as a maid in one of the houses Katniss picked up laundry from, and she was always all smiles, and grateful for taking that work off of her hands. Like most she was overworked. Katniss had thought she was older, in her twenties, not still a teenager, not younger than her.

Her heart ached, more than it had done previous years. Those years she had been in the middle of it, wrapped up in worry of getting picked herself and having to leave her sister behind, now she was worried for everyone else. Every single person standing there waiting to be picked had her heart wanting to tear itself out of her chest. After Ember made it up on stage everyone were made to clap their hands for her, to show a false support of the hunger games, and cheer on their new tribute as if she had a chance to win. Ember was just bones, never in her life had she eaten enough food to make her full, and had many times found herself at the brink of starvation. While her body was childlike, just as everyone else from the Seam, there was something in her face that made her look much older. It told stories of how tough her life had been, and Katniss thought she saw a relieved smile ghost at her lips, even though she was far away. Everyone's lives in the Seam was hard, but some lives were more unbearable than the other.

While Katniss was preoccupied with Ember, Effie walked over to the bowl for boys, and quickly pulled up a slip. Soon the boy's name rung out, Vittor Myle, a merchant. A merchant hadn't been picked since the 74th hunger games, when Peeta Mellark was picked, and before then it had been seven years since the last merchant was in. Everyone, but Katniss, watched in shock as the very handsome blonde seventeen year old boy strutted up on stage as if he was walking to buy milk, not towards his own death sentence.

"A merchant," Gale murmured, pulling Katniss out of her thoughts of Ember, and to the boy who with a huge smile shook Effie's hand. It was quite obvious that this pair was something out of the ordinary for the district, they were two people that didn't appear to think it was the end of their world to end up in the hunger games. No, these two people were happy to be there.

Once the doors shut behind the two of them the square seemed to be caught off guard, murmuring to each other and watching the shut doors with confusion. The smile on Vittor's lips were all that people were talking about, the laugh he gave just as the doors shut. No one seemed to have noticed Ember's small smile on the stage.

Prim walked towards them, away from the 15 year olds and straight into her arms. She wasn't the small little girl anymore, she was growing up and becoming a young woman that the boys around town would flirt with, a young woman who would smile and flirt back. That was something else that scared her, while at the same time there was a yearning for Prim to be eighteen. Katniss couldn't tuck her under her arm or comfort her as easily any longer, but she was getting closer to the end of reapings.

"I'm glad you're okay," Katniss whispered in Prim's ear, she had grown out of the endearments.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Prim asked with a glimmer in her eyes. They both feared the same thing, but it was easier not to acknowledge it until next year. One year at a time, that's what Gale had said to her the day of the third quarter quell reaping,. That year they made the two people from each district fight each other to death, and then sent the survivors into the arena. It had been hard to watch two people who had been neighbors have to kill each other, only to be sent to certain death after it. That year no one in the arena died without a kill. Apparently the Capitol had loved it.

"Come on, let's find Gale and Vick," she said. Though Prim was fifteen years old, and not a kid anymore, she still held Katniss' hand as they weaved through the crowd, where people still talking about Vittor's smile. Gale was standing with Vick, an arm around his shoulder and bowed down so that they could talk privately to each other.

Most who went through the reaping would be shaking in fear days after the reaping was over, the adrenaline rush never wanting to end. Those first few moments before it started to sink in that you were truly safe for another year were the worst part. Gale would always remember the feeling, shaky and weak, head spinning around. Some years were harder than others, and this year Vick's name had been entered five times, even though he was only fourteen and Gale had told him not to take a tesserae. Vick was stubborn, just like Gale.

"You're fine Vick, you're okay, do you want to come back to me and Katniss' house, she's managed to bake some bread that we can dip in soup," he whispered in his ear.. The bread was the usual tasteless flatbread, but with some soup to dip it into it wasn't too bad.

"Yeah," Vick answered weakly.

"Okay." Gale looked up from Vick and saw Katniss standing there with her sister. He knew she had no idea of the effect she had on people, how her strong willed personality, how it left people in awe of her, how beautiful she was. Sometimes he would catch other men looking at her, not with lust, but just a need to see her beauty a little longer. His pride, much too big his mother had always said, it swelled whenever he saw that, knowing that he's the one who gets to see her everyday. He was the one who got to see her freshly awake, in a grumpy mood, happy mood, somber mood, he got to see her when she was sick, when she slept, when she was naked and dressed, he got to see her writhing in pleasure, and got to meet her gaze as they made love during lazy Sunday mornings. Katniss would cut his balls off if he knew the pride he had over her, but it didn't stop it. That was yet another thing he was proud of, that he managed to find a woman who matched his fierceness. She still hadn't said she loved him, despite that in two weeks they would have been married for a year. Though he knew by the look in her eyes, the way she lit up when she saw him that she loved him.

"Vick is coming with us back to our house, you want to join us Prim?" he asked, and she nodded shyly. Prim was much different from Katniss, strong in an inviting way. She was much more aware and in tuned with her emotions than what Katniss was, who wouldn't know if she was angry or happy unless she thought about it for a while. Even in looks they were different, and sometimes it was hard to tell they were siblings.

They told their mother's that Vick and Prim were coming with them, and invited them along too, but they decided to head back to their own places to prepare dinner and rest themselves after the mental exhaustion that the reaping brought everyone with someone they knew in it.

From the square it wasn't too far to get to their house, it was much closer than the houses they grew up in, and it was a nice change since previous years the mental exhaustion along with the long walk made them all cranky, which tended to ruin the whole night.

While Katniss warmed the soup, the other's sat down by the empty fire place, the stifling heat had already arrived, and hopefully they wouldn't have to light the fire place again until September. Gale and Vick talked about school and mining with animated gestures, as Prim sat with a bored expression beside them. Vick was in a program at school, the same one Rory had been in, which put him on the fast track to get into the mine. It wasn't something Gale approved of, but he couldn't disprove of it either because it was one of the few ways a man could make money in the district. Few women were allowed down in the mines, because of pregnancies. The dust down there would harm the baby, they said, make it small and have many problems. No one ever knew of a time where women worked in the mines, so it must have been something they already knew of. Only women who were completely infertile were able to work down in the mines, and even then it was frowned upon. Katniss had no idea why, but it bugged her. Not that she ever wanted to work down in the mines.

She listened as the two of them talked about safety and how to work best without ruining your back. Too many men above forty in the district had troubles with their backs, and it only got worse with age, many were in excruciating pain the last years of their lives, becoming crippled and eventually bed bound. The young men in the district wanted to prevent this future the best they could, but the Capitol had little interest in providing with the help and knowledge needed for that.

Just as she pulled the pot off of the stove Prim brushed up by her with a smile on her face.

"I don't know what they're talking about," she said shyly, and Katniss could only smile back.

"Don't worry, we'll dictate the topics over lunch ," Katniss answered with a mischievous glimmer in her eyes. Prim's laughter was clear and light, eyes lighting up. The stress of the morning was starting to fade away, and slowly everyday life was coming back. She knew she would have to keep Gale preoccupied in the coming days, this was the first hunger games since his brother died, and she didn't know how he would react to it.

"Food," she called out to the boys on the floor. "And no more mine talk." She narrowed her eyes at Gale, who only chuckled.

In silence they broke up the bread in pieces, dipping it into the pot before eating it.

"You've been married a year soon," Prim said with a thoughtful expression on her face, looking at Katniss. "Most people who got married last summer have a baby now, or are about to have one."

"Not us," Katniss said quickly. They were always careful, still no slipups.

"They say in school that you have to," Prim said in a low voice. "Otherwise they might send you to the Capitol for committing a crime against the state."

"What?" both Katniss and Gale erupted.

"Unless you can prove that you can't have any kids," Vick mumbled.

"Which is hard to do," Prim protested. "You know… I would like to have a niece or nephew."

"We'll figure something out," Katniss said, staring at Gale. Prim looked between the two of them, confused as the two looked deep in thought. Inside Katniss was panicking, thinking about possible ways to prove that they cannot have a child, trying to get some reassurance from her husband that he had some idea. "There's always something we can do."

"Yeah," Gale said, but his throat was constricted. The fact that they seemed to have no choice angered him, he had no choice in having to put a child into this world, a child he might have to see be slaughtered in the same game his younger brother died in. He bowed his head, trying to conceal his anger from the other's, breathing heavily.

"Katniss…" Prim started to say, but stopped when Katniss refused to look at her, and kept staring at Gale.

"Gale, they can't prove… we can just say that we don't know." She scanned his face desperately, still clinging onto the hope that they could have a choice in this.

"We'll figure something out," he said, looking up at Katniss, taking her hand in his. "It's never hopeless." While it didn't reassure either of them, Katniss still let out a deep sigh of relief. They would at least try.

Prim looked at the two of them, wanting to share what she knew but unable to break them. She understood why they didn't want children, but at the same time she didn't. They had been taught from day one that children were something good, that it was what you were supposed to want and have, especially if you were a girl. They ingrained it into you, forced you to believe it, and Prim had swallowed it whole. No one had dared to say anything different, but the two people in front of her. Her sister's pale face betrayed her fear, and Prim thought of the mothers that would come to their house in agonizing pain, some of them bleeding out on the floor, some just giving up and slipping away. She remembered the women coming in cramping, and knowing that there was nothing to do but wait for them to die. Babies that got stuck… she understood, more than most she did understand not wanting children, but she didn't understand how they dared not to have one.

Katniss dipped her spoon in the soup and quickly ate to fill the silence that had spread at the table. Neither Gale nor Katniss looked up for much talking, so Prim and Vick started talking about the upcoming exams the next week. Vick's was mostly on mining, and Prim's was mostly on house chores and hygiene. Since women mostly took jobs close to home or in caretaking that was what they were taught in schools. Some women eventually got jobs as builders, but many of the men would refuse to let them in, and bullied them back into caretaking jobs, which made building a less desirable job for women.

Both of them were pretty confident that they would do well, because they were both interested in it. Katniss hadn't done well in any of the exams at school, and the only reason she knew how to do laundry was because Hazelle did a step-by-step guide for her to follow, which after a few months she had learnt by heart. Most other things she was hopeless with, like cleaning, or fixing torn clothes, how to cook the more complicated dishes, or how to properly change a baby's diaper. It was information that Katniss never found an interest in.

When the soup and bread was eaten Prim and Vick walked back home. Vick was probably going to meet a crying mother, the one year anniversary of Rory's death cutting close, and while Gale felt guilty sending him there, he needed alone time with his wife.

"Katniss." He reached out for her and pulled her into a hug. "We've managed it so far, okay?" he whispered into her ear.

"I've never heard of this before," she said. "Is it something new, and why haven't they told us?" She felt the tears of frustration well up in her eyes, anger at their hopeless situation blossomed up. It was unfair of them to demand them to put a child on this earth when it looked like this, she would feel too guilty if she gave birth to a child just to avoid being sent to the capitol as a criminal.

"It's probably something that they'll never do anything with, like the poaching laws, we're living proof of that those laws are nothing but words," he said. It was true, their district had many laws, and just as many of them weren't actually enacted.

"I'm still scared," she said. He nodded sadly, then giving her a quick reassuring peck on her lips.

"Somehow, we'll solve it, I promise."

* * *

I also wanted to mention, since I've noticed that there are quite a few younger people who follow this story, a few things about sex and why I've written it in a certain way.

Firstly, last chapter I didn't mention anything about a hymen and such because; there is no hymen. At least not in the way that we're taught about it. You don't "break" it, it is a fold that can tear a little if you aren't "wet" enough (hence why some girls bleed when losing their virginity). Also, while losing your virginity can be painful, it doesn't have to be. Get wet enough and it shouldn't be so painful. Advice I wish I would've had when I was going for it, but hey, at least some of you know it beforehand now hehe. You might still bleed even with enough lubrification, but you know... it doesn't HAVE to bleed.

And then with the "pull out" method, or coitus interuptus as slightly more prudish people than me say; not safe. If you are hellbent on practising it; the penis-person needs to pee before, so that all the semen that may be left in the uthera will be washed away and won't come out with the precum. With semen in the precum and you will probably get pregnant. However, semen may still come into the precum, and you may not always be able to pull out in time. The fact that Gale is able to in this story despite only having had sex once before is slightly unrealistic, however... it's fiction. But I felt the need to say this. If you use the pull-out correctly it MAY be as safe as a condom but you should NOT practise it when you are just starting out having sex (it's for the more experienced people) because that will be a recipe for disaster.

So, just needed to say this. If you have any questions about it just ask away. Also, the hymen thing... go on youtube and watch Laci Green's video on hymen. She may be quite problematic as a person, but that video provides a good explanation of it.

:)


	6. Chapter 6

Posting this a day early because my Monday will be busy. Thank you everyone for your reviews, they mean A LOT to me. As for why Vittor was smiling? He might just be a little smarter than what anyone would expect him to be.

* * *

The games passed agonizingly slow, the bigger events were a blur to the Hawthorn and Everdeen family. When they arrived at the arena none of them knew how to react to it. Last year Rory had been a part of it, so very much alive, but this year the games were a mark of his death. At first they tried to pretend like it was much like any other year, but their walls quickly crumbled and left them far more exposed than they had been before. After that they tried to find solace in each other, in the sorrow of their grief, but found that it somehow became a quick downward spiral where they would be unable to utter a single pleasantry without almost combusting at the weight of triviality.

After a while they tried to find a way to grieve in their own ways, but still hold each other's hand. Gale would hold his mother as she wept, tell stories of Rory to Posy, Posy would play with Vick, and Katniss would listen to Gale as he vented his frustrations. Once the game finished they were abruptly interrupted in their grieving by the startling news that Vittor Myle had won. For the first time in 27 years district 12 had a victor.

"Maybe things are changing for the better?" Katniss mused to Gale the morning Vittor would arrive back in the district. They were lying in bed, legs intertwined, having the day off for celebrations.

"We won't starve as much," he said with a smile.

That summer was the first time many had seen a child be able to eat until he was full, young girls bloomed out in puberty and people smiled more. Though the food was far from enough, it was just enough for everyone to be thankful.

It was strange for the district to have cameras lingering in town, capitolites milling in the better parts of the district. People had a hard time knowing how to behave, but Vittor seemed to understand completely. While he was nice to everyone people still didn't know if they should like him based on how much he seemed to have liked participating in the hunger games, which was something the district seemed to be unified in hating. It was never done openly, but everyone expected to be on even ground when it came to feelings of the hunger games, but Vittor shook that up.

Vittor moved to his house in the victor's village with his younger sister, leaving his parents behind in the apartment over the store. It seemed only natural, since his parents still had their pharmacy to run.

Katniss and Gale spent most of their off days during their summer lying in the grass next to the fence, relishing in the tranquility of the place that was detached from the rest of the district, away from the noises and the crying babies on their street. They would lie in the shadow, it was too warm to lie in the sun, their clothes sticking to their skin and sweat tickling their faces and chest. Neither felt the need to talk, just the need to breathe for a while.

Life had gotten rough, despite being a winning district. The two of them worked all days but Sundays, and neither of them felt like they had any energy left at the end of the day. Both of them longed for the woods, for the scent, for the feeling of branches being crushed under the feet, and coming eye to eye with a wild animal. Out there they were free, but in here they were caged animals with nowhere to go. Some evenings that summer they would go home and make love, but most of the evenings the humid heat was enough to deter them.

In the middle of august the heat got less pressing, and as the monthly supply of food came in a cargo they celebrated Posy's 7th birthday with what in Seam standards were a bang. With home baked bread, that wasn't the usual flat bread, and a chicken soup. Posy was wide-eyed and completely taken with everything, it was the best birthday she had ever had, and the adults all feared that it would be the best birthday she would ever have.

When Posy's birthday had passed, there was one looming ahead in November. It was what would have been Rory's eighteenth birthday, the one that would have marked his last year in the games. This year's birthday would be nothing compared to the next year's, the one that would have been his nineteenth, the one everyone wishes they would get to experience. It meant that they lived to see the end of their stay in a reaping bowl, the end of their risk to be reaped, the start of a life. The birthday next year would be hard for all of them to cope with, harder than any other before it, or after it.

During September Gale was promoted to cart supervisor, an above ground job, as if he didn't have scars on his back to remind him of him edging the line of treason when he uttered his anti-capitol opinions that spring. Gale had learnt a long time ago that when you were given you did not ask, what you did was thank and make yourself worthy of what you were given, and give back. It gave the two of them more money, most of it they gave to their families since they needed it the most. Prim would graduate from school in the spring and take on a job as a caretaker at the local care ward for the merchants that got sick, they had already offered her a job there. She looked like a merchant girl, and she had the knowledge of caretaking as a Seam girl, which made her perfect fit for the job. Even the merchants could not deny that the people from the Seam were far more knowledgeable when it came to caretaking. By that time they would all have it a little easier with money, and eating, something that they had never had at any point in their lives.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Katniss had never had any fuzzy feelings when it came to animals, unless they were wasted food. Ever since Buttercup became a member of their household she had a hard time understanding what it was with him that made Prim want to keep him. A less charming cat would be hard to find, yet he stayed.

The chills had started to draw in when Katniss made her then weekly visit back home to see Prim and her mother. Their mother daughter relationship was still strained, but somewhere they had found a tolerance for each other that made civil conversation much easier.

On Tuesday evenings she left the laundry at a merchant's house that was only ten minutes away from her mother's, instead of twenty to her own house, so she would stop by there to talk to them. Prim always had something to tell, and her mother would sit by and sometimes give advice on whatever they were talking about. Prim had a crush on a boy, she had found out the last week she was there, he was older and completely unaware of her existence. Typical boy trouble, if she had learnt anything from the talk in the school yard. Katniss had been unable to offer advice, and her mother seemed unwilling to give advice, wanting to keep her daughter innocent a little while longer.

That Tuesday she found Buttercup with his tail stuck under some fallen rocks. How he had managed to get stuck there she had no idea, but it suddenly struck her right in the heart to see him helpless like that, and quickly lifted the small rocks that trapped his tail. At first he hissed at her, expecting foul play, but quieted down as she lifted the rocks. Even she was surprised at her lack of animosity towards the cat, and at how eagerly she helped him. Usually she would only help him because it would've hurt Prim if she didn't, however she was completely aware that this wasn't done from Prim. She did it because it hurt her to see him hurt.

As soon as his tail was released he ran off, without a single glance back at Katniss still holding the last piece of rock.

"Ungrateful brat," Katniss muttered under her breath, all of the sympathy she had for the cat lost. She followed the same path the cat had taken, which led towards the house she had grown up in. Even from a distance she could see Prim holding Buttercup in her arms, stroking him with one finger between his ears. The cat loved that, and would purr contently and never allow you to stop.

"Hey, Katniss," Prim said with a smile as Katniss walked up on the porch.

"Hey Duck." She kissed her little sister on the cheek. "How was school today?" Prim rolled her eyes in response.

"A girl in my class believes that school is some competition, she never lets anyone speak in the classroom but her." Prim giggled. "Even after the teacher told her to keep quiet she kept talking, she's going to talk herself into trouble."

"How is it with the boy then?" This time Prim's whole face flamed up in a blush that she tried to hide by turning her back to Katniss and walking inside.

"Good," was all she said. Katniss closed the door behind her, and watched Prim release Buttercup who quickly ran upstairs.

"Good?" She tried to pry.

"Katniss," she whined. "I don't want to talk about it, okay?" Katniss nodded. "How are you and Gale?"

"Good, Gale likes his new job better than the old one, but the hours are the same if not a little longer… and laundry keeps me busy and properly exhausted," Katniss said. "Prim, can I just use the bathroom and then we'll talk some more?"

That was something she had wanted to talk to her mother about, during the past two weeks she had needed to use the bathroom more often, and she knew that was a sign of a serious infection. She had a UTI when she was younger, but she didn't remember the medicine her mother had given her. Any infection left untreated could have devastating results. When she came back Prim was sitting by the kitchen table with her nose buried in a book.

"Where is mom?" Katniss asked.

"She had to go next door, the youngest boy is wheezing when he breathes so they wanted her to look at it, but she's probably back soon," Prim said. When it came to sick children no one wanted to say it, but a single infection could wipe them out quickly, and be deadly. Instead they would treat it as a simple cough or a wheeze until there was no possible way of denying it anymore.

While she waited for her mom she sat down next to Prim and tried to help her with her homework, but Prim was already far smarter than Katniss, and if anything Katniss slowed her down, but Prim didn't mind. Ever since Katniss got married they hadn't been able to see each other as much, and any time together was enough to make her happy, even if she would have to stay up late to finish her homework.

About half an hour later their mother came home, and started with the dinner. Katniss watched her carefully, trying to gauge her mood to see how it had gone with the little boy, but her mother's face remained neutral.

"Mom, I wanted to ask you about what you gave me to treat my urinary tract infection a few years ago," she said, and her mother turned around with a thoughtful expression on her face.

"What makes you think you have one?" Her mother kept stirring the pot behind her as she watched her daughter.

"I need to go to the bathroom a lot," Katniss said.

"Does it hurt when you go, or does the urine look cloudy?" Katniss shook her head. "Does it smell?" Katniss shook her head. "It doesn't sound like one, Katniss, but sometimes you can have one without all of the symptoms, I'll give you the recipe for what you need." Her mother went upstairs for a while and then came down with a slip of paper that she handed Katniss. "Boil this and then drink it as often as you can, it will flush it out."

"Thank you." She stuffed the piece of paper into the pocket of her pants, and watched her mother return to the pot. Her mother seemed different this time, as if she was hiding something. Katniss was unsure if she wanted to ask her what was wrong, but she was afraid of the answer. Instead she returned to her sister's side and watched her plow through the questions without any hesitation.

The silence in the house was a bit too much for Katniss, so shortly after dinner she excused herself to go back home to her husband, when she quickly fell into a deep slumber next to her husband.

She drank the liquid her mother had given her a recipe for in great quantities over the next two weeks, but there was no change. She kept having to run to the bathroom at random times, and the liquid just gave her heartburn, so when she came back to her mother two weeks afterwards she had to tell her it didn't work.

"Are you drinking enough of it?" her mother asked, eyeing the liquid that was left at the bottom of the bottle Katniss carried with her.

"Yes, and there's no change, only that it gives me heartburn," Katniss admitted.

"There is nothing in there that would give you heartburn, if anything it should ease it." Her mother frowned at her daughter. "Are you feeling okay, otherwise, are you feeling tired?"

"I work over sixty hours a week, so yes I'm tired." Katniss felt impatient, and turned her gaze to look at her sister who was supposed to do her homework, but instead she was looking at her.

"Katniss, I don't think you have a urinary tract infection," her mother said, her voice trembling slightly as she tried to pace herself.

"Then what else could it be?"

"Katniss, I think you're pregnant." The words fell flat in the house, Katniss was frozen in shock over the unexpected words that had fallen from her mother's lips. Gale and her had been taking precautions, they had only slipped up once at the end up June, but she had gotten her period after that. She'd gotten her period several times, her last period was only… she got stuck there, knowing that her period was supposed to have been there about two and a half weeks ago.

"But we've…" She tried to find the words. They had been careful. "I've got to go," she said, quickly redressing herself, and she was out of the door in seconds.

Pregnant, surely there was something they could do to stop it, she wouldn't have to go through with it. After all these years there was bound to be something to prevent it from going any further than this stage, to prevent it from becoming something more. The tears got stuck in her throat, the pain filled out her chest and made it hard for her to breathe.

I can't do this, she thought, thinking of this child in her belly. All the things that she would wish to provide it with, but none of it was anything she had. She couldn't give it freedom, she would only give it this caged life facing death each year at every turn. It could be a daughter, one that would risk pregnancy just like her, with all the complications along with it, or it could be a son that would slave down in the mines, threatened by the explosions that could strike at any time. No life, no path, nothing of it was something she wanted to give a child of hers.

Suddenly she was standing in front of the door to her home, tears threatening to spill from her eyes and no idea how she got there that quickly. When she stepped inside she saw Gale sitting by the fire brushing his shoes, looking up at her surprised.

"Why are you home so early?" He looked her over, saw the panic on her face, the tears in her eyes. He could only assume the worst. When the door was shut behind her she whispered to him;

"I'm pregnant." The dams broke, and the tears streamed down her face with no sign of the end of them. "I don't know how, but I'm pregnant."

Always running to the bathroom, the heartburn, the ability to smell what the neighbors were cooking and the nausea at the smell of it, the sudden sympathy for the cat she hated, and these tears. All of it was because she was pregnant. She hadn't realized that she had missed her period, she had been working so hard and the exhaustion at the end of the day made it impossible for her to even remember the fact that she was supposed to have it then.

"Catnip," he whispered and drew her into a tight hug. "It'll be alright, maybe this is even a sign?"

"What?" Katniss said through her tears.

"Rory's birthday is tomorrow, maybe this is a sign?" His hand reached to touch her stomach but she jerked away from him.

"No Gale, we have to fix this okay? We have to fix this together!" she pleaded "Please Gale, I don't want to be pregnant."

"Catnip…" His eyes pleaded her. "This might not be such a bad-"

"No Gale! We agreed, we agreed that we didn't want children, we agreed on that!" she yelled.

"I agreed on trying to prevent it!" he yelled back. The two of them stared at each other, trying to understand this misunderstanding. She had thought that no matter what they would prevent a child of theirs to be born, no matter what, but he thought that what he agreed to was to prevent it, not to stop what had already happened.

"No Gale, please." She took his hand. "I can't do this." She put her hands on her stomach.

"I don't know if we can stop it," he said, calmly.

"We've got to try," she said.

"It's illegal, Katniss, they'll kill us," he said. Katniss shook her head.

"What we've done was illegal too, nothing happened," she said.

"Yet, nothing has happened yet, we've only been married for 17 months, they might be coming next month asking, and it's easier to prove that you've gotten rid of a pregnancy!" He had started pacing in his rant. "I know Katniss, I know exactly why you don't want to be pregnant, and I don't want you to be either, but you are, we can't change that, we don't know who they will go after more than us," he said, trying to talk sense into her.

"I'm scared." He drew her into a hug again, holding her close and trying to comfort her the best he could.

* * *

Woops, well... Better fed + unreliable birth control method = baby. So really, don't do pull-out!

Anyway, scary times ahead for Katniss... motherhood is not something she expected for herself.


	7. Chapter 7

Sorry for the delay in update! I started my new job and had a few things to do before starting, have started to workout more (trying to lose weight, woop), so I haven't really had much time for updating this. Anyway, here it is.

A few words about Katniss not knowing she was pregnant until she had it spelled out to her: denial is a very powerful thing. Frequent urination is just as likely a UTI, and it doesn't have to have symptoms such as burning etc. Also, denial... she didn't believe she could get pregnant, so obviously that wasn't it. Not knowing that you are pregnant is much more common than you'd think, finding out at 3 months isn't that hard to believe, but many don't know until they are five months (I read somewhere that it is more likely that you don't know you're pregnant until 5 months than it is to have triplets, lol), or until they give birth.

So... Katniss and pregnancy... how will that go?

* * *

After the initial chock of the news of her pregnancy, Katniss still had a hard time understanding that she was pregnant. Despite the nausea that had taken a hold of her, the exhaustion and her incessant need to run to the bathroom twice an hour, it was hard for her to take it in. With the help of her mother they had calculated that she was due late in late June. It was also by her mother that she was told that aborting a pregnancy in the middle of the winter was hard, because the herbs that made the pregnancy terminate itself weren't, of course, around in winter. An abortion during winter was risky, and not at all recommended to go through unless you were willing to die doing it. Some were.

Hazelle was both happy and sad about the news of a grandchild, for the same reasons Gale and Katniss were sad about the prospects of being parents. Together Hazelle and Katniss' mother were able to help with the early pregnancy complaints. A bit of ginger for her nausea, sleeping with a bra for her tender chest, and dried prunes to help with the constipation. Though Katniss didn't think it helped much, it was better than nothing, and for the first three months it helped her keep focus on seeing the end of it. But it did pass, as the new year began, Katniss woke up and the first feeling she had was not nausea.

It was also in the very beginning of the new year that a small bulge started to appear between her hip bones, stretching the skin and telling the world the story of that a small baby was growing inside of the hard to reach woman.

A side effect Katniss had not expected to feel until much later in the pregnancy, when the weight of her stomach would weigh her down, was how impossible it was to walk fast. It made her job much harder, since everything became slightly delayed, but no one complained about it, mostly because it was the servant people who accepted the freshly laundered clothes, and they weren't as punctual either. It did stress Katniss, her inability to get from A to B in a short enough time, and it irritated her how her feet just refused to go the speed she wanted them to.

Towards the end of January, a few days after Gale's 22nd birthday, which passed without any celebration other than the whole family gathered at their house, she had been asked by the mayor to run an errand in town for him. He needed her to pick up cough medicine for his daughter Madge, who was the same age as Katniss, and pain killers for his wife. No one had seen his wife for many years, she had been hiding in the house for many years with a mysterious illness no one talked about.

The pharmacy was clean, void of the coal dust that covered every other surface in the district, and smelled strongly of disinfectant solution that burned in Katniss' nose. She didn't know if she could blame it on her sensitive smell, or if it actually smelled that strong. Behind the counter stood a graying old man with a scowl on his face as he watched her approach.

"I'm picking up cough medicine, and pain killers for Mayor Undersee." She handed him the note given to her and signed by the mayor. The pharmacists read the note, but still looked back at her with a scowl.

"Don't touch _anything_," he said before he turned around and walked into the stockroom in the back. She did as he said and stood still in the middle of the store in front of the counter, watching the bottles lined up on white clean shelves around the store, the metallic shiny register and the impersonal atmosphere the store gave off. Suddenly the door behind her opened, and the bell above it gave a ring as it was shaken. She whipped around and saw Vittor Myle standing there, watching her with a smile.

"That's a pretty sight," he said, walking up to her with an extended hand. "I'm Vittor Myle," he said.

"I know, I'm Katniss Hawthorn," she replied, shaking his hand.

"Any chance you're related to Rory Hawthorn?" he asked with narrowed eyes. Few people remembered past tributes if they did not have any relationship with them, and maybe Vittor did, he was only a year younger than Rory.

"I'm married to his brother," she said, trying to get control of the sadness that spread in her chest.

"Ah, married…" he said, seeming to be disappointed, but Katniss didn't understand why he would be. "Are you running errands?"

"Yes, I'm picking up a few things for Mayor Undersee," she explained, so that he would know that she wasn't just in there loitering, she had a purpose.

"Do you work for him?" She shook her head. "What do you do, then?"

"I kind of work for him, I do laundry," she said.

"Right, Mrs Hawthorn runs that doesn't she?" Vittor mused. "Do you have any openings? You see, I have so much laundry but no idea how to do it, I would pay you for a whole day every other week, if you have the ability to."

"I'd love to, but I don't have a full day opening," she said. Except on Sundays, but those days were her and Gale's only day together. She didn't want to give those up.

"If I pay you double then?" he asked. Her eyes widened.

"Double?" He nodded. "I suppose I could…" she trailed off. Double the pay would be extraordinary with the baby coming, it was incredible luck for both her and Gale to be getting these opportunities, few people in the Seam had two people with good income in their families.

"Is that a deal then?" he asked.

"I just have to tell you first, I'm pregnant and due in June, if you still want me then I'll be happy to accept the offer," she said.

"That's okay, I won't be home most of June anyway, I have to travel to the capitol," he said, waving her concern off.

"Right, I forgot." She shook her head, but he only smiled.

"It's easy, I do so too sometimes." He winked, and that's when the older man walked back into the shop again from the stockroom.

"Here's the cough medicine and here's the painkillers," he said gruffly, putting the two white boxes on the counter and ringing up the totaling sum before she handed him the money, exactly enough to cover the medicine. "What are you doing here then Vittor?" he asked his son after handing Katniss a plastic bag to put everything in.

"Just came to see my pop and ma," he said, still a smile on his face. Vittor looked little like his father, Katniss thought, or maybe it was just the fact that he was smiling, the direct opposite of his father's scowling, that made him look so much different. Quietly she walked out of the door, but was stopped by Vittor calling her name before she closed it behind her. "What day are you able to give me?"

"Friday should work, odd weeks" she said. Friday during odd weeks she only went to two houses, and they were far from each other and neither of them were particularly nice or influential, so she could drop them without much, or any, consequences.

"Sounds great, see you next Friday then, just come by, I'll be waiting".

When she had left off the medicine at the mayor's house she was done for the day, and walked home. From town it wasn't longer than a ten minute walk, which she was thankful for. While the nausea had disappeared and frequent urination had lessened quite a bit, the exhaustion still lingered at the end of the day. She longed to curl up in bed next to Gale and fall asleep with him talking about their day while his hands rested on her stomach. It started to become easier for her to handle, the pregnancy and ultimately that she was becoming a mother. There was no way to change it so she could only try to find the positive parts of it.

No one outside her family knew of her pregnancy yet. When she was outside she always wore a jacket that kept her growing belly hid, but as the warmer months started to grow closer, and her belly grew bigger, people would soon know that by summer she would be a mother.

Back at the house she quickly started the fire to warm up the house, and started on food. It was Wednesday and it meant that she would be home before Gale, she was on duty to make food. As the house started to heat up she kicked off her shoes and took off her jacket, leaving her in a shirt that was becoming a bit too tight on her body. She unbuttoned her pants and let out a sigh of relief. Soon she would have to alter these pants to fit her expanding stomach, but she had no idea how. She'd have to go by her mother's house this weekend to have her look at them and help her. For now she would have to stuff herself into these pants.

After a while she heard Gale opening the door, and dusting off his shoes before walking towards her, she looked back at him, smiling in greeting.

"Wow, you look amazing," he said in awe, coming up behind her and wrapping her into a hug, his hands falling to her stomach. "I can't wait to feel him kick." She nudged him off with a shrug of her shoulder, teasingly.

"You don't know if it's a boy."

"Yes I do." He turned her around and dropped to his knees, planting a kiss on top of her stomach. "You're a boy, right?" She laughed at him. "You don't think it's a boy?"

"I don't know," she shrugged.

"You haven't thought about it?" She shrugged again, blushing. "Hey, Katniss…" He stood up, pulling her into a hug. "I know this is rough for you, but things are looking good, our child won't have to grow up as we did, I'm not in the mines, I earn more money, you have a job too."

"I talked to Vittor Myle today," she said then. "He will pay me for a whole day, double the pay, every other Friday for doing his laundry."

"That's amazing," she nodded in agreement. "That's really amazing," he kissed her suddenly, passionate and heartfelt. It pulled at her heartstrings and tightened in her belly, telling her to hold him close, pull him closer and never let go.

"We need to eat," she said against his lips, and he groaned.

"Do we have to?" he said as he drew away. She nodded and gave him one last peck.

"After dinner."

When dinner finished she made good on her promise, leading him upstairs and undressing before him. With him she felt worshiped, as he kissed her body tenderly, stroking her and eliciting pleasure from the simplest touches. He would have her shaking as she came, trembling and crying out. Afterwards she curled up under his arm, draping her leg across his waist. She loved these moments, as they lay next to each other naked and content, in post- coital bliss. As their heartbeats and breathing slowed down, and she stared at the wall in front of her, she felt something stir in her belly. A slight tickling almost making itself known to the world. She gasped at the sensation.

"Could you feel that?" she asked Gale, but he shook his head, not knowing what she was talking about. "It moved, I felt the baby move."

"You did?" A smile spread on his face, his other hand flew to rest on her stomach, too. "Wow, there's really someone in there."

"Yeah." Her voice trembled with how real it was, that there actually was someone inside of her, someone that would grow up and live, risk death, someone that she would love equally to, or more, than she loved her sister. "Promise you'll never leave me." She rose up on her elbows to look down on him.

"I promise Catnip," he said, stroking the hair out of her face. He loved seeing her without the braid, seeing her hair wild and free, with her cheeks still rosy after sex. "I promise I will do everything in my power to never leave you." He reached up and kissed her on her lips.

"That's all I'm asking."

"You have to promise me the same, to not leave me."

"I promise that I will do everything in my power to always stay with you," she said and kissed him.

At first she could only feel the baby move when she was lying down in bed at night or in the mornings, but after a few weeks she could feel the baby inside of her if she sat down, or stopped moving for a little while. Gale wasn't able to feel the baby yet, though, but not for lack of trying.

By the time March came around and the cold let up enough to allow for a thinner jacket, her stomach had grown enough to show that she was undoubtedly pregnant, even if she tried to hide it. It was a tough decision for her the first time she decided to go without a winter jacket, and choosing to use her thinner hunting jacket instead, knowing that it would mean everyone would know that she was pregnant.

She had barely walked outside before Lys stopped her with a huge smile on her face, and her six month old daughter in her arms.

"Wow, congrats Katniss, I didn't even know you were pregnant!" she gushed.

"Yeah," was all Katniss said. She had no idea how to respond to it. They hadn't hid the pregnancy intentionally, but at the same time they hadn't rushed to tell anyone.

"We were beginning to think you were having… troubles, you know," Lys whispered.

"Oh, no… no troubles," Katniss denied, though she had no idea what Lys meant with troubles.

"Ok, when are you due then?" she asked.

"My mother did the calculating and she said around June 24th."

"Wow, that's in less than four months!" she gushed. "Just let me know if you want any advice, help or anything, I know how tough breastfeeding can be in the beginning so just come by if you have any questions," Lys said, stroking Katniss arm. "This little girl absolutely refused to breastfeed at first." She playfully shook the little girl in her arms, making her laugh.

"I'll keep that in mind," Katniss said, smiling awkwardly at her. "Thank you. I really have to get to work now, though."

With a quick good bye she hurried to work, as fast as she could while pregnant. Every maid congratulated her, and some of them gave her advice, despite her not asking for it. She said thank you every time, but was unsure of what she was supposed to do with it. As it turned out, that was pretty common amongst everyone, not just maids. Wherever she went that week someone would either touch her belly, offer advice, tell a story of when they had their first child, or do all of the above. It was quite disturbing to Katniss, and it made her question her decision to shed the bulky winter jacket when she did.

By the time the end of the week came, and she was going to be in the Victor's village where only three people lived, she was thankful to get away from the people in town.

"Wow, look at that belly growing!" was the first thing Vittor said when he opened the door that Friday. She smiled tensely, but politely, at him before he welcomed her in. Compared to the other houses he had his own washing machine that did laundry in no time at all, but since he had adopted the capitol ways, as he said it, he had much more clothes than the average person in the district, so by the time she arrived every Friday she had enough clothes to wash to keep her busy. However, between the batches she was able to take it easy, and he would sit down with her in his living room, where he had plush couches and walls painted in lovely colors and patterns. The walls of the houses in the Seam were all a dull grey that did little to inspire anyone, but these walls were almost magical in Katniss' eyes.

They talked about their lives, growing up. While everyone went to the same school, their lives were completely separate from each other. Those who grew up in the Seam always grew up hungry for food, knowing that they were going without so much, and watching the merchants dress in clothes that weren't threadbare, and knowing that they were going home to eat a filling meal that night. But the story Vittor told of life as a merchant was different. Most of the money that they earned they had to pay the to the capitol for rent, or in taxes, and they had to count their money just as much as everyone else in the district. Sure, they did have it quite a bit easier that the Seam kids, but they lived far from luxurious lives where they could afford to buy desert everyday. As a victor he could buy whatever he wanted, and he did so. Every Friday he would have bought a new treat for her to try. It was anything from sweet soft chocolate that melted in her mouth to cakes and hard candies that you sucked on. Every treat he had her try he would then wrap up at the end of the day and tell her to take home and share with her husband. Every Friday night on odd weeks Katniss would bring it home, after protesting it, and both she and Gale would feel guilty about it because neither could repay him. Though, they still ate it, unable to resist them.

In late May as Katniss found it even harder to get around, and that her feet would swell up to an impossible size if she stood up for too long, she longed for the air conditioned house in the victor's village where Katniss had a small chair to sit on while she loaded and unloaded the washing machine.

It was during one of these visits that the house was suddenly invaded by capitolites and cameras, and the house erupted from the usual quiet into constant chatter. As this happened Katniss walked out of the laundry room in the back and towards the stairs to carry up the dried laundry, but her walk was cut short by the sight of all the colorful dresses, shirts, eyes and hair. One of the person's eyelashes were much too long to be considered normal, and were the color green.

"You're early," she heard Vittor say, walking from the living room into the hallway. Katniss stood still and stared at them. The baby in her belly was kicking her ribs, but she didn't even dare to wince. She had between two and six weeks left of the pregnancy, so it was starting to become very uncomfortable, especially as the baby had dropped, which caused her to waddle everywhere.

"We decided we needed to get away from the capitol a bit, it gets a little stuffed in there sometimes," the man with the long eyelashes said.

"Phst, it was Portia who couldn't wait to see you again," said a woman with unnaturally big irises.

"Fine, well go into the living room and I'll get you all some tea," Vittor said, waving them into the room he had been in before they arrived.

"Isn't that the maid's job?" the woman with the big irises said.

"That is Katniss, and she's not my maid, she only does my laundry and keeps me company from time to time, my sister moved back with our parents this winter, as you know," he said, and the two women and the man with the long eyelashes approached her with extended hands. Awkwardly she put the basket with laundry on the stairs, not as limber as she was only a few months ago, and extended her own hand to be shaken. She watched their faces as they shook her hand, not saying their names, they were examining her clothes, the old flowery dress that was Hazelle's when she was pregnant with Posy. It was pale, the colors faded and the bottom of the dress had started to get torn after rough hand washes. They cringed at the sight of it.

"Nice to meet you," Katniss lied, smiling at the three people in front of her.

"When are you due?" the woman who had not spoken before said. The only thing that was unnatural about her was the vibrant blue color her hair was, that matched her whole outfit.

"In about four weeks," she said. The woman nodded.

"You look very young, how old are you?" Katniss squirmed at the woman's questions

"I'm 20," she said. She had turned 20 just a few days ago, but it was with little celebration due to the fact that it was on a weekday and everyone was busy working.

"Wow, they start young here in 12," the man said, and laughed loudly. Katniss didn't quite understand what he meant, 20 was an average age for people to have a child, even be pregnant with their second child, it wasn't as if they could prevent it that easily. How did they do it in the capitol, did they have a way to avoid marriage, and didn't they have laws that forced them to procreate? Katniss guessed that they weren't forced to do so there, that they only wanted those in the districts to have more children, so that they would have more work force.

"Come on," Vittor said behind them, seeming to be annoyed with the turn the conversation has taken. When they had walked into the living room Vittor came up to her. "Is that the last batch?"

"No, there is another one in the drier," she said.

"I can take care of that, it's probably best if you go home now…" He looked behind him into the living room. "In two weeks I will be in the capitol, you know, so I was wondering if you could come by next Sunday and help me wash some clothes for my trip, I completely understand if you are too tired, but it won't hurt to ask." The smile on his face was so completely genuine.

"Yes, I can come by then, I'm trying to pick up a few Sunday shifts so that I will be able to take two or three weeks of when the baby comes, for recovery," she said. She knew that three weeks would be pushing it, but she also knew she needed to heal after the birth, something her mother said could take over six weeks to happen. Six weeks was far too long for anyone to take a break for, so half of it would have to due.

"Right, by the time I come back this little guy might be here," he said with a smile, gently brushing against her stomach. He was one of the few people she didn't mind touching her stomach, only Gale, hers, and Gale's family were allowed to touch it besides Vittor. Luckily Vittor didn't take that opportunity so often.

"Hopefully," she said. The baby in her stomach had woken her up early in the morning with kicks and squirms that made it seem like he was trying to dig his way out of her stomach.

They said their goodbye's after that, and she left the laundry basket on his bed, and then started the long walk home. During the months that had passed since she discovered that she was pregnant she had found a comfort in her pregnancy, knowing that as long as her baby was in there no one could take her baby from her. There were women who lost their children inside of them, during the months she was pregnant she had met plenty of them, some who had one month shared their joy of being pregnant with her, and the next month been seen with a flatter stomach, instead of bigger. But a child that died in the womb was a child that never had to experience hardships or starvation, Katniss thought. So while her child was in her womb, she considered her child safe. But the clock was ticking, and any day her baby could enter the world.

Gale was overjoyed with being a father, despite the circumstances. He believed that their child would have a better life than they did, that somehow they would be able to avoid all of the hardships and their child wouldn't have to take a single tesserae. Katniss' parents had thought the same, but when her dad died when she was 12, things changed. She didn't dare to hope. So while she hoped, despite the how uncomfortable she was, that the child in her belly would stay there until July, at least, but she knew that there was no way she would be able to have a say in that. Some children came weeks before they were due, some unfortunate children much too early to be able to make it, others came weeks after they were due. One woman she knew went over five weeks overdue before the child came. Everyone had expected the child to be a big baby, but it was very small and poorly child.

Gale always made it home before her, these days, and he had begged her to take on a smaller work-load, but she insisted to keep on working to make sure that they had enough money once their child was born. It was little that they could do if something happened, so it was best to save and work as hard as they could while they were still able to. She liked that by the time she was home dinner was ready, though, it was then she could finally relax, put her feet up and take a deep breath. Gale would come sit beside her, resting his head on her big belly while he sang songs for their baby.

It tore her apart, and made her remember her own dad. He had been dead for about seven years now, but the pain was still present in her chest, threatening to have her break down. There had been a few times during her pregnancy where the memory of him would have her sobbing, because the way Gale acted reminded her so much of her own father, and what she had missed out on. Her biggest fear in life was that Gale would die, too, and leave their child without a father. While she feared it for herself, too, losing her partner and love, having a child without a father was worse, because she knew what it was like to be a child and miss that.

That night Gale did exactly like he always did, curling up beside her in bed with a head on her belly.

"How was work?" he asked, instead of singing. She looked at him, surprised by the change of routine.

"It was fine," she said, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.

"You usually come home with something, not today, I thought something might've happened," he said. Sighing she rubbed her eyes, trying to come up with a way to explain what happened when she didn't even know herself.

"Some people from the capitol showed up, so he sent me home, I would've been home much later if it weren't for that." He pursed his lips, deep in thought.

"I don't like you going that far away, where so few people live when you're this pregnant." The baby kicked him in the face, good baby, she thought, but he only smiled at it, lifting his head to run his hand over where the baby had kicked.

"I'm only going one more time, next Sunday, before he leaves for the capitol, then I'll probably won't go back until the baby is born."

"Sunday? But Sunday is your day off, you should be resting now, not working harder." The frown returned on his face.

"We need money more than I need rest." He stroked her belly, getting another kick.

"I'm worried," he said, planting a kiss on her belly button. "I don't want you to get hurt Katniss."

"I can manage myself, Gale, I don't need you to take care of me." She looked offended at his words. She didn't like him suggesting that she was weak an unable to care for herself.

"Catnip, it's not a bad thing to accept help sometimes," he said.

"Gale, you know exactly why I don't like getting help, you're exactly like me, why else would you have been distrustful of Vittor for just giving me some sweets to take home?" Gale groaned, lifting himself up and lying beside her.

"Katniss, I know everything about you, sometimes I think I might know you better than anyone else, but Katniss, look at yourself," he said, chuckling, and put a hand on the belly that seemed to protrude over a feet.

"What?" she said indignantly, wrapping her arms around her belly.

"You're 8 months pregnant, you're exhausted, you're uncomfortable, and I wish you'd slow down a little because before you know it this baby is here, and I don't want it to happen on the road from the victor's village."

"I don't think this baby will come for a while," she said, giving him a kiss.

"You don't know that." He rolled his eyes at her.

"Mother's intuition."

She worked the whole next week, just as she had up until that point. It was getting harder, but she didn't like to admit it. Sometimes she wanted to call it quits and just go home, but she needed the money, she needed to stay busy, so she kept working. By the time Sunday rolled around she was exhausted, but knew that there wouldn't be much work for her that day, so she got up and walked to Vittor's house despite her body's protests. He was busy with what he called a prep team, so she was sent to the laundry room where she did a very small batch of laundry, in comparison to the ones she usually had at his house, and was then sent home with money for the week.

It wasn't until she came home that she realized that he had given her seven times the usual sum he'd given her, so that was fourteen times what people would usually pay her for a day. When she saw all the money in the envelope she broke down crying, because this meant that she could at least take two weeks off without having to worry too much about money. When she showed it to Gale he was equally shocked by the amount of money in the envelope. Neither of them had seen that much money as a lump sum in their whole lives. He would have to work nine days to get this amount of money, and she would have to work over two weeks, so it was never enough money to save and see like that.

They carefully hid it under their mattress, almost afraid of having that much money. Money, while it gave you a lot of things, could give you a sense of false comfort, and neither wanted to rely on that money. They needed to try on their own first, if that failed they knew that the money was there.

* * *

As a note for this chapter. Due to the fact that I've never been pregnant (yet, thank god) I've had to rely a lot on theoretical knowledge. However, for those of you who are not parents, haven't been pregnant or are pregnant, a movie I've been told that depict real life as a parent quite well is the french movie "Un Heureux Evenement" (A Happy Occasion is the English title). I'm a sucker for these kinds of things, like realistic movies (you bet that L!fe Happens pissed me off haha), even if you're not watching to understand or to learn anything... it's a good movie :)

blablabla, now I'm going to stop talking. Next update is monday morning (Europe) or sometime on tuesday... :)


	8. 78th annual Hunger Games - Chapter 8

This chapter isn't edited that well, I'm not feeling too grate and it's taken the better part of the day for me to be able to concentrate enough to edit. I know last chapter was a bit dull, and I have to admit this one is a bit dull, too. A few more things happen in this chapter. When writing I go by the rule "if there is a gun hanging on the wall it has to go off at sometime during the story", everything I write has to mean something, and I don't believe in writing unecessary parts. Which is why about 8 months is covered in one chapter and in others there's only a week or a few days. And also why it can get a little dull from time to time, because I need to get from A to B but there are certain things that need to be covered first (and I don't think you'd have liked me skipping Katniss' pregnancy completely!)

Anyway, here's a new chapter. **Warnings to readers are: mention of rape, and death. **If mention of rape bothers you stop reading at the "AAAAAAAAA" devision line, and start reading again where there's another "AAAAAA". If death bothers you; stop reading after the second AAAAAA line. I hope this helps for those of you with triggers. I don't want any of my readers to be triggered here! I will mention at the end of this chapter what it is that happened, if you want to read a summarized version of it.

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**78****th**** annual hunger games**

The reaping was two days after she had been at Vittor's house, and it was also in the early mornings of that day that Katniss was woken up by contractions. She knew that some mother's experienced false labor for weeks before birth, but she didn't want to risk it. Instead of keeping quiet about it she quickly woke up Gale and asked him to get her mom. Earlier in the year her mother had agreed on that she would assist her in labor, so Katniss would know what was going on and what she should do. She had seen a few children being born from difficult births in her childhood home, but she had never paid much attention to the stages they were happening in.

Gale quickly shot out of bed, running around frantically in their bedroom, wondering out loud if he should just skip pants and run out in his night shirt. After a little convincing Katniss managed to assure him that it wasn't that much of a hurry, and he definitely needed pants if he was going to take the over twenty minute walk to her mother's house and back.

During the hour Gale was gone, Katniss talked to her baby, explained to him, or her, that she would do the best she could to be a good mom, but there were things that were out of her reach, but she would do her best to protect him from that. She said that in twelve years his name would be in a reaping bowl, and that for six years she would live in terror, not knowing if her child would die that year, or the next, or the next, in a game that the capitol had invented to revenge a rebellion.

"It's not that I don't want you… I don't want this for you," she said after a while, trying to think of a way that she would be able to explain to her child why she didn't want it to be born. Tears pressed against the back of her eyes at the thought of being forced to have this child, this child that she both wanted and didn't want. She loved her child, there was no denying that the child inside of her had her heart so completely and it wasn't even there yet. But what did she have to give her child? A life where it'd have to come with her to work everyday and watch her wash other people's clothes, a life where there was so much death and poverty, a life where her child would stare into the windows of a bakery at the cookies in different shapes and colors, and eventually a reaping bowl that once out of… he or she would merely become a person meant for breeding, and nothing else.

She had nothing to give.

When Gale came back with her mother she had gotten through three contractions, which were painful but not horrible. For then she could manage. According to her mother it seemed like she had a long way to go.

They spent the day in the house, watching as people left for the reaping, and sending the message with Lys that she was in labor and therefore the three of them would be unable to attend. All of them were worried about Prim and Vick who were in the bowl that day, wondering what they would do if either of them were picked, they wouldn't be able to make it there in time to say goodbye, especially not Katniss, she was not going anywhere that day.

She walked around the house, trying to keep herself busy but the pain got increasingly more intense, and would have her almost down at her knees eventually. The time passed, and Katniss had been in labor ten hours, they knew that soon they'd know if Vick or Prim had been born, and none of them knew where to focus their attention on the most; the road outside to see if Vick and Rory were on it, or Katniss whose contractions were growing closer and closer.

Katniss worried about her baby, worried about her baby sister, worried about herself, worried about the pain, worried about everything. Her heart constricted and all she could think of was how unfair all of this was, how unfair it was for her to have to worry about these things. She didn't want her sister to die, she didn't want her baby to die, but she was doomed to worry about it. Unable to stop the tears she broke down, sobbing against Gale's chest as he held her tightly, massaging and pressing down on her lower back to help with the pain.

"I want Prim," she said as the time had passed when the reaping usually was. In about half an hour they would know. They had promised that they would come to their house afterwards, so that they would all know they were safe, and to be there when the baby was born.

"She'll be here soon, Catnip, just relax and focus on your breathing," he whispered in her ear.

"I can't, I can't focus, I need her here I need to know that she is safe, please Gale!" she begged.

"She'll be here soon," he repeated, kissing her cheek.

Eventually they did arrive, and despite the pain Katniss was in she immediately drew Prim into a hug, kissing her all over her face.

"You're okay, you're okay, you're okay!" she chanted, stroking her cheek. "You're okay, duck."

"I'm okay Katniss," Prim replied with a smile.

As Katniss was able to relax her labor started to progress much faster, and within an hour of Prim, Vick, Hazelle and Posy arriving at their house, Katniss was pushing. Katniss didn't know how long she pushed, it was as if time stood still and she couldn't understand what was happening. It was as if she disconnected from herself and was watching from the other side of the room. The pain, unbearable, was still there, she still felt it completely. Yet it wasn't her body.

As her son arrived she was helped to lay on her back and was placed on her chest. Her shirt was quickly unbuttoned by someone, she didn't know who, and she could feel her son squirming as he screamed against her. He was sticky, but she didn't feel that, she didn't feel much at all except the throbbing of her vagina, still in pain. Even that was canceled out by her son's face, body, his small fingers and toes, and feet and arms. His tiny nose and head.

"Wow," she heard herself say before she had even thought it. She and Gale reached to touch him at the same time, making sure that he was real. He was, completely and absolutely real. He had thick dark hair growing on the top of his head, and even though she couldn't see who he looked like she recognized him. Like she'd seen him before. Her mother put a blanket over the two of them, and their son was slowly starting to calm down, searching for her breast, and finding it. She thought she would have trouble breastfeeding, but it seemed like he had solved that on his own.

Someone knocked on the door downstairs, and Gale gave Vick a pointed look to tell him to open the door. While Vick went downstairs everyone else crowded around Katniss to look at the new boy who had just entered the world. It was incredible that he was inside of her less than a half an hour ago, and now he was here.

They were interrupted by two sets of heavy footsteps up the stairs. Katniss' mom quickly made sure that Katniss was completely covered by blankets and adjusted a few of them before Vick returned with the person who had just entered the house with him.

Everyone curiously looked behind Vick to see who it was, and was dismayed to see that it was a peacekeeper.

"I was told a few of you couldn't attend the reaping because of a woman in labor, I have to check that this is true." The peacekeeper said in a bored tone, looking down at Katniss on the bed, holding her newborn son close to her chest as he was feeding.

"He was born about five minutes ago," Gale said, a threatening gleam in his eyes. It was one thing for peacekeepers to impose on him at work and on town, even on his home, but a completely different thing to impose on his son's birth, ruining the precious moment.

"And we need to deliver the placenta soon, so it's best if you leave," Katniss mother said then, narrowing her eyes at the peacekeeper. It wasn't the first time she had met a peacekeeper that believed he had a right to impose on a child's birth and first moments in life, and it wouldn't be the last.

"Alright," he said nodding a goodbye, and then left the room.

"Somehow they manage to weasel themselves into pretty much all laboring rooms," Katniss' mom muttered, then sent everyone but Gale out of the room so that Katniss would be able to deliver the placenta in peace.

"What are you going to name him?" Posy asked later that night when the newborn baby slept in Gale's arm in bed. She was almost sitting in Gale's lap as she watched over the tiny boy. Katniss was sitting on the other side, resting her chin on Gale's shoulder.

"Talon, Talon Hawthorn," Gale said with a smile.

"I like that," Posy said. "He looks like a Talon."

"He does," Katniss agreed.

Katniss was in no way prepared for motherhood, as she discovered more with each day that passed. Though breastfeeding was working for her, that was pretty much the only thing she had down. When it came to knowing if her son needed to eat, burp, sleep, if he was too warm or too cool or if something was too tight, she had no clue. When Talon woke up at night she often found herself helpless, unable to sooth him, and many times she ended up crying them both back to sleep.

Being a new mother made her miss the whole hunger games that year. Not because she refused to watch, but because every waking moment she was either taking care of, or worrying about, Talon. It was on constantly, but she was never able to watch, and if she ever sat down in front of the TV it was to fall asleep sitting on the chair.

Gale had to go back to work the day after Talon was born, so he wasn't able to help during the days, Prim had started working too, so she wasn't able to come by, and Hazelle was busy trying to fit most of Katniss' schedule into her own. That left her mother, who was only able to come by every other day or so, and Vick who proved to be an excellent babysitter for an hour after school while she caught up on sleep. To say the least, she was exhausted.

With all of her worry for the hunger games that Talon would have to experience the threat of later in life, and the worry that they would somehow sink into poverty again, she had forgotten to worry about how it would be like to take care of a child during her pregnancy. It was unlike anything she had done before, and if she felt that the now electrified fence was restricting her, motherhood was like a prison.

She loved her son dearly, but within two weeks she was driving herself up the walls with lack of sleep and lack of ability to take a breath sometimes. The walls of the house were also starting to close in on her, and she was quickly getting claustrophobic in there. But just as she thought she was about to combust she had to return to work. While still recovering from birth, work still was something she needed to do.

So she would wrap her son up in a scarf and carry him around on her chest as she did laundry at people's houses. Many would comment on Talon's beauty, and melt at the sight of Talon's face peeking out of the scarves. Even the head of the households would come to the door to look at him. It was a new thing for Katniss, to see people approach her with a purpose other than to demand something of her. People she had never seen smile would smile, people would glance her way on the street. She had found that while people had little patience for children and teenagers, there was something magical with babies that would have them all melt into a puddle.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA A**

It was starting to become the reaction she was used to, so when she visited the mayor's house and his daughter Madge opened it, a girl she used to talk to sometimes at school and considered a friend in a way, she expected a similar reaction. But instead of smiling and gushing, Madge appeared to be holding in tears.

"Wow, he's beautiful Katniss," she said, her voice thick.

"What's wrong Madge?" she asked. They hadn't talked for years, not since school ended a three years ago.

"Can you… do you want to come in?" Katniss nodded. The mayor was never strict about getting his laundry back at a certain time, and she knew Talon was starting to get hungry by the way he was sucking at her collar bone. It would be a welcome break to be able to come inside to feed him, and not have to sit outside of the hot laundry room on a shaky wooden bench feeding him.

Madge led her through the house, and it struck Katniss that while she considered Madge a friend, they had never been to each other's houses. That wasn't something that had crossed her mind before, but as she saw the pictures on the walls, the knickknacks lying on random places, she realized that this was a part of Madge she never had known. A house said a lot about a person, and a house where useless things could just lay around showed just how much money they had.

"Please, sit," Madge pointed to the couch in the living room. Katniss briefly worried about her soiled trousers, but then figured that Madge knew she was dirty, so she sat down anyway.

"Is it okay if I feed him?" she asked. Madge nodded quickly. A bit too quickly, and then looked down in her lap as Katniss adjusted.

"Does it hurt?" Madge asked after a while.

"Yeah, it's supposed to get better though." Madge looked at Talon's head, quietly taking in Katniss and her son together.

"I never pictured you as a mom, you were always the one who was free, going anywhere, I was sure that you would be able to weasel your way out of that one…" Madge said, but trailed off as her voice grew thicker.

"I tried to," Katniss admitted, blushing. "It failed."

"Would you… do you regret it?" she asked. Katniss frowned, trying to come up with the right way to say what she was going to say.

"I love him, I don't regret him, but I wish I wouldn't have to have him… I don't believe any child deserves this kind of life, and did I have a choice, I wouldn't have had him," she said. Madge nodded.

"I'm pregnant," she blurted out then, tears welling up in her eyes and spilling over her cheek.

"Madge…" Katniss had no idea what to say, no way to comfort the friend she hadn't spoken to for years.

"I don't want it, if that makes me a horrible person I am a horrible person, but I don't want it." Madge broke down sobbing in front of her, and Katniss was unsure of what to do. She carefully got up from the couch she was sitting on, hoping that Talon wouldn't lose his latch, and gingerly walked over to sit next to her, wrapping her free arm around her shoulder.

"We could maybe find a way…" Katniss said, trying to think of something. She had thought about ending her pregnancy herself when she first found out, but realized she knew no way how to. If she had, she wouldn't be sitting with a three week old baby I her arms. "Who is the… father?" Madge wasn't married, and she hadn't heard or seen her with any man.

"I don't know," she mumbled. Katniss frowned. "They… I walked home from work and a few men they started following me, started saying that I was a whore because I wasn't married, they…" Madge broke down, falling into Katniss' shoulder as her sobbing seemed to tear her apart. It was one thing to get pregnant when you don't want to with a man you love and trust, and another to get pregnant after being violated and abused. It wasn't that Katniss hadn't heard of rape before, it was one of the reasons why she married Gale, so that she would avoid a fate like it. But the fact that rapists weren't pointed out and hung for their crime made Katniss' blood boil. She wanted to ask if she had pressed charges against them, but who would believe a young unmarried woman? Especially when people said they were only unmarried so that they could have as much sex with as many people as they please?

"I'll talk to my mom, it's summer now… we might be able to find some plants, maybe, the fence is on so we can't go out to find any," she said. Madge nodded morosely .

"Thank you Katniss."

She was very late home that night, but she didn't care, all that she could think of was Madge and her story. Who were those men that did that to her, and why did they get away? How can someone do that to a person? She wanted to tell Gale, but Madge's story was so personal, and she didn't feel right sharing, even though it would ease her own burden. It wasn't her story to tell. Instead she curled up to Gale, thankful that she married him, even if it meant having a child against her will, and even that she had decided wasn't too bad. She loved her son, completely, wholeheartedly, like no one else in the entire world. No one could take that from her.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

"I have some bad news," her mother said almost two weeks after Katniss' talk with Madge. They had talked about herbs that could be used as an abortifacient, but none of them were available inside the fence. They had tried to find them, but came up empty. She hadn't been able to give Madge the news because of her hectic schedule, but her mother had a few days earlier broken the news to Madge. "It's about Madge."

"What about her?" Katniss asked. She was in the middle of cleaning up the kitchen place, it was Sunday, and a good cleaning of it was well overdue.

"After I told her that we couldn't help her she seemed okay, to me, I thought she would be alright." Her mother drew a deep breath. "She tried to abort herself, with some metal device, but ended up striking a bigger blood vessel."

"What are you saying?" Katniss stopped what she was doing, staring at her mother, daring her to say what she was going to.

"She died, Katniss, she died of internal bleeding…" The pain that hit her, it hit her straight in the chest knocking the breath out of her.

"No." She said, in shock. Did Madge know she risked dying, did she want to die? Katniss sat down, trying to calm the questions that were running around in her head, and trying to sort out her feelings. She hadn't been her friend for a long time, and when she talked to her she offered little help and left so quickly. She didn't go back, she could have gone back and they would've tried to solve it together. If she had gone back, she thought, maybe Madge wouldn't have died.

"Her funeral is in four days," her mother said, giving her daughter a hug. Katniss wondered if she should have told her mother about what happened to Madge, she hadn't told her mother the whole story, but maybe if she knew she would have been able to help in other ways. Her mother, while not being a person Katniss trusted much, was good with words and knew much more about how to help people than what she did.

"Okay, okay," she nodded. Madge's funeral. She was only twenty, people rarely died at twenty, there was usually a break in deaths between eighteen and thirty, those twelve years were years of prosperity for most. But not for Madge.

Gale was just as surprised as she was at Madge's death. For moral support he took a day off for her funeral, which was only okay since it was the daughter of the mayor that had died.

The funeral was extravagant in the district's standards. Flowers were lying on the casket and there were at least around thirty people in attendance. The mayor spoke a few words about his daughter, talking about her quiet life, how she was as a child and the dreams she had for the future. Dreams that would never be able to come true.

While Katniss, Gale and her mother knew the real cause of Madge's death, the official cause was a fever that spiked too high. The mayor's daughter couldn't have died from a botched abortion, it would put shame on the whole district, and the mayor would lose his job, maybe he would even be prosecuted and sent to jail? It was easier to cover it up, it wasn't that uncommon for someone to die of a fever, mostly it was young children or older people that died from it, but it happened sometimes that a young adult did. No one would ask questions, and everyone would remain happy.

Katniss wondered a lot about how everything would've turned out for Madge had she not died. What would have happened if the abortion was successful, and what would have happened had it not been? Those thoughts would have her run to her little sister to give her a hug. There were no words that could bring a person back, but there were words to help her sister live. She told her sister to never walk alone at night, to always have a friend with her, and to marry. She begged her sister to please marry the boy that she loved, and the boy that loved her back. Marry as soon as you are out of the bowl in two years, she had begged her sister.

When she was Prim's age she had not understood marriage or having children, but now she did. It wasn't a choice, it was a must to protect yourself. No one would trust an unmarried woman, and no one thought a married woman as anything other than a mother. Death was a far worse faith than bearing a child, at least while having a child you could still protect the ones you love.

* * *

**CONTENT SUMMARY:**  
Katniss had her son, named him Talon. She goes to see Madge who tells Katniss that she had been raped and gotten pregnant. Madge asks for help to abort her pregnancy, but they can't find the herbs inside of the fence. Madge attempts to self-abort but ends up hitting a vein or artery, and ends up bleeding to death.

**Explanation (will contain talk about rape culture, so once again; it may be a trigger): **I think many of us are aware of what victim blaiming is, and this is not something made up to fit this universe, but something that is happening everywhere right now. I know in my country it is illegal to make a case against a woman who has been raped based on what she wearing to make her seem... like she actually wanted to have sex. But in some countries this is common practice, and in District Twelve, that's what is happening. A woman who doens't marry is promiscuous (a slut), and someone is promiscuous (a slut) can't be raped.

As for abortion. Abortion is a common practise and has _always_ been, even when it was very very illegal. Even when women knew they would be sentenced to death if someone found out. Today in the US only one person dies in an abortion every other year (even every three years sometime), the years before it became legalised it was around 250 a year or so, which is still a low number but was due to doctors breaking the law and doing it. It is impossible to know how many died during the 20-50's when the prices for illegal abortions were sky high and still illegal (and rarely done by doctors if you were not rich).

So, that was a little history lesson! I might've said it in the beginning but most of the things I bring up in this story are things that we have in our society only these are more extaggarated and visible. If they aren't present today, they have been not so long ago (the pronatalism that the Capitol has was something that went on in Italy just about 60-70 years ago). It is based in actual historical fact, and not as outlandish as you'd wish it all to be.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, I know that I like the next chapter a bit better... :)


	9. Chapter 9

Thank you so much for your reviews of the last chapter. In my head Madge was never interested in Gale, I think that's fanon, but she never seemed interested in boys or anything, so I imagined her as either asexual or gay, which is why I didn't have her married in this fic. It's a cheap shot to mention it like this, but I want my version Madge to be "clean", heh.

As for their son's name, and how it's pronounced. I found this on google: "T-a(like apple)-luh-n". It means the claw of a bird, basically. I thought about a plant name, but didn't find one I liked, and wanted a word that reflected their hunting, wanting to be free, and nature. Talon was the best fit.

* * *

The summer crept by, and Katniss continued to take care of her son and do her rounds of laundry service. It was harder than anything she had done before, and as money started to grow thinner, life got even harder. Some nights she spent awake with her son, crying as she nursed him because she was so tired and worn thin. She wished she could rest for days, sometimes, lay down and rest, have someone else take over. But it wasn't possible.

Money would have been easier if Vittor had returned from the Capitol after the games, but he had remained, and she did not know how much longer he would stay. He had sent them letters, which was kind of him she thought, explaining that he would not need her services until after summer. Gale didn't share her view of it, believing that Vittor had tricked her into giving him a full day and then disappearing to the Capitol. Katniss knew him enough to know that this wasn't true. He would not disappear like that. But with the sudden lack of income for one day, they were hit harshly. Unable to provide help to his mother with money, Hazelle, Vick and Posy were suffering too. Vick was trying to make the ones running the logistics of the mines to budge the rules of when he could start working in there, but they refused. He wouldn't be able to start until after September. Like everybody else, because he was just as starving as everyone else in the Seam.

It was a relief, though, that their situation was only temporary. Soon Vittor would come back and she would earn more money, and Hazelle and Vick would become able to survive the year without any tesserae. Until now Vick had been able to go without a tesserae, but if things did not change, that would change soon.

Vittor arrived back in the district in September, the Sunday after Vick's first week in the mines. Instead of traveling straight to the victor's village he went to Katniss and Gale's house away. There he found them entranced with their son who was laughing at the noises Gale was making. To his mind that had been stuffed with sadness, the sound of a child's innocent and genuine laugh was just the thing he needed to pull through the ache that threatened to swallow him whole. He regretfully knocked on the door, knowing the sound would halt the laughter, but he needed to speak with Katniss. He was happy though when it was Katniss that opened the door with her son on her hip. He was a smiling, wide-eyed baby with a mop of dark hair on top of his head.

"Wow Katniss, you have a beautiful baby," he said, a smile spreading on his face.

"He is, isn't he?" Katniss smiled proudly.

"Ah, a son? Your husband was right then?" Gale appeared next to Katniss, to see who was at the door.

"Yes, I was," he said, frowning at him. He was still angry with the man for disappearing for the whole summer, leaving them struggling with money.

"I was just coming by to tell you that I was back, and I can't tell you why I was gone, I really wish I could but… I have money with me," he said. Gale's frown instantly relaxed in his confusion.

"For what?" Katniss asked, noticing the envelope in his hand.

"You've done such a good job, working so well despite everything, and given me a whole day, which I've left gaping open now, I can only hope that you're willing to return to working for me now." Katniss opened her mouth, but nothing left it. She was too shocked to say anything. "This is for the days you haven't been able to work, and extra for compensation that I hope will be enough to persuade you into come back working for me."

"How much is it?" Gale asked after a while, shock lacing his words.

"Pay for all seven weeks you should have worked while I was away, and five more days," he said. Katniss and Gale could only gape and him and the envelope, but eventually Katniss sprung into action, handing Talon over to Gale and telling him to go back into the house with him, it was starting to get a bit cold.

Katniss stepped out on the porch with Vittor and closed the door behind her.

"It's really kind Vittor, but that is a lot of money."

"I have a lot of money, more money than I know what to do with it, and I can't walk around handing it out," he said. "I want to, but it isn't allowed, and I don't think anyone would like it." The district didn't like to receive hand-outs, they were distrustful and were afraid of owing anyone anything. It was best to survive on your own.

"What makes you think I will like it then?" she asked him, arms crossed. A part of her wanted to grab the money straight away, but the other part was suspicious. The Seam girl who didn't trust anyone, who was just like everyone else in the Seam when it came to owing people. She remembered Peeta, the boy who died four years ago, the boy she wasn't able to repay for saving her life.

"Because we both know that you have worked to earn them, and that you will continue to work to earn them," he said, confident in his worth. And it was the truth, Katniss knew that she had worked hard for him, providing him with the best service she could, and she knew that she would continue to work to earn his money.

"Okay," she said then, somewhat reluctantly taking the money out of his hand. "Gale won't like it," she added.

"I'm sure you can convince him," he said, to which she nodded. "Are you still available on Fridays, odd weeks?"

"Yes, I am."

"Good."

"I will be brining Talon with me," she said.

"That's okay for me, I love kids," he said with a smile. Katniss only nodded, most people loved kids, but most loved them in small doses, not a full day. A full day would be enough for any non-parent to combust into irritation of not being in control. After three months of being a parent Katniss had gotten used to not being in control of her own life anymore, but it was still something that had her wanting to bang her head against the wall from time to time.

After exchanging pleasantries Katniss returned back into the house where Gale was sitting with Talon by the kitchen table, watching her with anticipation. When she put the envelope on the table he visibly relaxed, but he needed to swallow a lot of his pride to be able to accept that, which didn't come easy. Though, he'd rather lose his pride than for his family to suffer. He knew his mother had debts from this summer, and though Talon was still only three months there would soon be a time when he would have to eat proper food, and not just breast milk. It would be a while until that happened, if everything worked well with breastfeeding. His little sister Posy had been exclusively breastfed until she was one, and then her mother had continued, to fill her up a bit more, until she was almost three. It was a way to ensure that their child would get enough nutrients. There could be a shortage of food, and if only a little milk could help, they would do it. But that wouldn't be enough if none of them were able to eat. They were in need of money, and Katniss' employer had money.

"I start next Friday, again," she said taking Talon from Gale. "He needs to eat."

The dynamics at Vittor's house was different after that. Before he went to the Capitol he had been happy, joking and he would share stories with her along with the sweets, but now he was quiet. The only times he would light up was when Katniss asked him to hold Talon as she rested her back a little. Talon had started to grow heavy, favoring his father's strong built rather than her slight one. Talon had started to look a lot like his father, only a few of his features were from her and her family. Sometimes she would think that Talon looked like her father, the shape of his eyes and the way his lips would curl as he laughed.

Sometimes Katniss wished she would dare to ask Vittor what was troubling him, because the last time she neglected to ask a person if he or she was okay, she ended up being buried in a mahogany casket. There was something about his sadness that made her afraid to ask, though. It resembled Madge, the way she had moved, the way she looked around herself. Vittor would give friendly hugs to her as she came or went from his house, but nowadays the only person who was allowed to touch him was Talon.

"Don't you miss being a little kid?" he asked, a few weeks had gone by and they had settled into a routine again. She hadn't answered him, understanding that the question was rhetorical. "Before you knew what the hunger games was, before you were old enough to fear it… I miss that."

Katniss couldn't remember being that young, at times she believed she had been born with fear of the hunger games. Maybe that was the difference between Seam and Merchant? The Seam couldn't avoid it, but the Merchant could.

Katniss liked working at Vittor's house, though. It allowed Talon to be able to be down on the ground much more than in the washing room she usually worked in, where it was much too warm and he would become cranky. In Vittor's house he would lie on the floor, strengthening his back and head, so that he soon would be able to sit and hold some of his own weight up as she carried him. It was a nice contrast to the warm washing room, and she always looked forward to Fridays on odd weeks. Gale still had a hard time swallowing his pride, and if it weren't for the money that they got from Vittor he would've asked Katniss to find someone else to work for that day.

Vittor became even more important in their lives as winter drew in. It was mid week and Katniss had just laid Talon down for the night and started on dinner when Gale came home, his face bright red and anger coming off of him in waves.

"Those damn merchants, those little scumbags! They have no respect, they think they can just push us around and we will just sit there patiently," he roared, pacing up and down the room as Katniss watched him carefully. She knew Talon would wake up from the screaming, but also knew that any attempt to calm in down would be unsuccessful anyway. "I'm fed up with having to play their games and just smile as they insult our families, as they crack jokes about us, and I'm just supposed to be thankful I still have a job when they demote me back into the mines when I have done nothing wrong?"

She heard Talon's wails, and quickly hurried up to him, and Gale followed her, but she turned around quickly.

"Not while you're upset," she said.

"I can't see my son, is that what you're saying? I just found out I'm going back down in the mines and you're saying that I can't see my son?" he asked incredulously.

"You can see him when you've calmed down, but I have to get him back asleep now after you've woken him up," she said. She understood his frustrations, but she was furious with him. They were finally going to get their alone time, a short while when it was just the two of them, when they could be Gale and Katniss again, not mom and dad, when they would be able to try to find some normalcy in their chaotic lives. But instead she would have to spend that time calming down a child she had just gotten ready for bed.

Forty minutes later she got downstairs again, just as Gale was pulling the pot off of the stove. She glared at him as she sat down, grabbing her spoon and eating some of the soft vegetables in fuming silence. Gale, who was still angry, plopped down on his seat and did as she did. They sat there for a while in silence, both angry at each other and at the people at the mines who sent him down again for no good reason.

"Don't come home screaming again," she said halfway through their dinner, and he nodded. They ate the rest of their dinner in silence, Gale bowing his head in regret. The fear of returning down in the mines that had buried both of their fathers threatened to swallow him whole, but he knew that anger would do no good. He wished he could return to the woods, to take Katniss and Talon with him and run away. They would be able to live well out there, hunting animals and cooking them above a fire. Talon would love it, if he was anything like his parents. But the fence had been on for a long time, and no one understood why.

"Want to come to bed with me?" she asked as they had finished dinner, he nodded again. In bed he touched her as they did when they first got married, too afraid of going further, too afraid of creating another life which they could not provide for. She loved him, she truly did, she realized in that moment as he kissed her through her ecstasy. She had known for a long time that she had loved him, but the depth of her love was scary. Together they created a new whole, together they had made the most wonderful person alive; their son. He was her hunting mate, her best friend, her partner, her husband, the father to her son and a person that made her life so much more complete. Without him in her life she would be lost, unable to go any further. She wished so hard for him to never be involved in an accident like the one that took their father, and that if he were it wouldn't take his life. He would survive. He would be one of the men that returned up in the elevator with smoke in their lungs, but okay. Not dead.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

By the time Talon was 6 months old the winter had a strong grip on the district. It was the coldest winter in years, and with Gale down in the mines again it was hard for them to find clothes that kept them warm. Prim helped out with money for a snow suit to keep Talon warm. It was very big, and it almost fell off of him, so they had to tie it to him, but it was what they had to do, they wouldn't be able to afford another one the next winter. They both worried about the winters to come, about affording clothes for their growing child. They would have to set money aside for it, but they didn't know where that money would come from. Coal prices had gone up, as had most of the food prices in the district. They tried to buy cheaper food in the Hob, but with the state of the district it was slowly going out of business.

Vittor remained being more reclusive and quiet, but after a while he started to come out of his shell again. Though, he only lit up as he held Talon, they would play together on the floor as Katniss did his laundry, and he would happily change his diaper whenever needed. It was a welcome break for Katniss. She wondered a lot about other moms, the only moms she had spoken to were Hazelle and her own mom, and occasionally with Lys, but those other moms seemed to handle their motherhood with grace, whereas Katniss felt like she stumbled over everything. She loved her son, but didn't like motherhood, she didn't like being tied to anyone as much as she was tied to her own son, and she yearned for some sort of normalcy. She wondered how they handled it, how they managed to look so put together and at ease with their children. Was it because they chose to be parents, that they were able to accept their roles much easier than she did? Did that make parenthood easier, more manageable?

She didn't dare to ask anyone about it, scared of being told that she was a bad mother. Mothers should love their children, love being parents to their children, love them so much that giving up themselves was the natural and given thing to do. But Katniss wasn't willing to let go of herself. She wanted her nights with Gale, she wanted to be able to freely walk around the district at any time she wanted, she wanted to sleep a whole night, talk to Gale without interruption, not have to worry as much as she did.

There was a reason why Gale and her didn't want to become parents, and that reason stuck with her even after her son was born. It didn't fade, it didn't become less important. It was still there inside of her, reminding her everyday.

So when Vittor took Talon out of her arms for an hour she wanted to weep out of gratitude.

This was the reason to why Katniss accepted his offer of becoming his maid, full time, eagerly. It was February, just a week after Gale's 23rd birthday when he watched her sort his laundry with Talon asleep in the shawl she had wrapped around her that he blurted it out.

"Do you want to work for me full time?" he asked, gnawing on his lower lip and leaning against the door frame. She stopped what she was doing and looked up at him, and then down at the pile of laundry.

"Are you going to buy even more clothes? I don't think anyone has to wear that many clothes, or has time to wear that many clothes," she said, an amused smile on her face.

"No, I mean as a maid." She furrowed his eyes at him.

"I only know how to do laundry," she said. "No, it's true, this is the only house shore I can do," she explained when he laughed at her.

"You do nothing at home then, Gale takes care of the whole household?" The smile on his face showed his amusement.

"It's a bit different taking care of a small Seam house and this house." She swept with her hand, trying to make him see that this offer was ludicrous.

"You know how to do the dishes, how to sweep the floors, you know how to do my laundry, and I know you can cook," he said. "If there is anything you don't know, I know that you will learn it," he said, with a victorious smile that reminded her of the first time she saw him up on that stage.

"Why me?" she asked then. She understood why he had asked her to do his laundry, she was one of the few in the district who provided that specialized service, but he had been more than generous towards her ever since. It had never occurred to her before that he was giving her a special treatment, not until he was asking her to do something she was definitely not qualified to do.

"Because I know you, and I don't want a stranger in my house," he said simply. She nodded.

"But why did you chose me to do your laundry, why not Hazelle, she is far better at washing clothes than I am?" She continued to prod.

"After being in the hunger games, seeing kids my own age and younger die, I prefer the company of those my own age who are alive, and people Hazelle's age were sitting in the control room, making sure that everyone but me died." His lips curled in disgust as he spoke, eyes cast to the ground. "It doesn't make sense, but I feel safer with someone my own age."

"I guess it makes sense," she said, nervously starting to sort laundry again.

"It makes you uncomfortable," he said, and she tried to interrupt with a protest. "No, I don't mean it like that, I mean… the hunger games, it makes you uncomfortable."

"No, it makes me scared," she admitted. "In eleven years my son will be in that bowl, and I can't stop it." Tears started welling up in her eyes. "Prim has two more years in the bowl, Vick too, Posy is going into the bowl in three years, and one, or all of them, might get picked and die just like Rory. And I can't do a single thing about it." She threw black clothes into the washing machine.

"My little sister is fifteen this year, and I'm scared they'll pick her just because I'm her older brother," he said, his voice growing thin. "She lived with me for a while, but she thought the house was too quiet and my nightmares scared her… apparently I scream loud enough to wake her up."

Katniss stopped what she was doing and looked up at him as his shoulders started to shake as his tears began to fall.

"I'm sorry," Katniss said, watching him and not knowing what to do. "I'll be your maid, but I have to find a replacement first."

"Thank you."

"It might take a while," she warned, but knew that everyone in the Seam was looking for a job, so it would only take as long as a training period would take.

"Take as long as you need."

One of Prim's friend from school who was in the year above her was desperate for work. Her mother had gotten an infection in her feet and was unable to walk, and her father was unable to provide for his five daughters with only a meager handy-man's pay. Her eagerness to start working, and ability to learn quickly, made it so that she was able to start working just over a week after training period began. The thankfulness on her face had been priceless for Katniss, and she wished that she could grant more people's wishes like that. A job was the difference between death and life.

Prim's friend was the first one to admit to Katniss that prostitution was a thing in the district. Katniss has always suspected that Cray, the head peacekeeper, would give money for that sort of company, and there were enough young girls in the district who were in dire need of money. She didn't know that it was much bigger than that, that it wasn't just Cray, and that there were quite a few young women, and older women, in the Seam would turn to them for money. Mostly peacekeepers. Prim's friend said that the peacekeepers were better, they had some rubber thing that would prevent them from get pregnant.

Typical them, Katniss thought, of course they would be equipped with something that would prevent pregnancy while everyone else lived in fear of it.

This job would keep her away from that, or at least not have her rely on that job. It made Katniss sick to know that some people had to go to the same people who pushed them down to the ground, let them degrade them just because they were the ones with money. It had nothing to do with the Seam women wanting to, Katniss knew that, this was about life and death. Maybe some women preferred that profession though, Prim's friend hinted that some people did. It was something Katniss didn't understand, and didn't want to understand. So she was glad when training period ended, because she didn't have to hear about the women who worked at night, and she didn't have to think about it anymore. All she had to think about was keeping Vittor's house clean and keep it from falling down. Worrying about the girls at Clay's door would do no good.

"I miss the woods," Gale said in bed. It was March, and they had been listening to a bird singing outside their window. They'd watched the bird sing and flutter its wings before flying off again.

"It's been two and a half years," she said, sighing. She'd often dream about standing outside of the fence, holding the bow in her hand and feeling its weight. Now she was unsure if she still had it in her, if she still knew how to shoot straight and hit her target perfectly.

"Talon would love it," Gale said. Talon was lying between them, having a still moment while playing with his feet, babbling loudly about them.

"We would never get any game with him, though." She picked him up and held him above her, lowering him down to blow raspberries on his stomach that made him laugh loudly. "He'd wake up bears in winter."

Mornings were her favorite thing, when they woke up before having to get up, and Talon was in a great mood. He was a morning person, they had learnt as much now. Every morning at five thirty he would wake them up and refuse to let them fall back asleep, leaving them with forty five minutes just resting in bed before having to get up. Gale's shift started at seven am, and Katniss had to be at Vittor's a little after eight. But on days like that, Sundays, they would lay still in bed and let Talon play there until he fell back asleep at nine. It was a luxury to be as lazy, and they took great advantage of that opportunity. At nine they would crawl into each other's arm, gasp and moan quietly as their hands caressed the other.

"I wish I could have you on the ledge, our place in the woods, with the scent of pine needles and fresh air, away from all the coal dust, just you and me and the nature," he whispered in her ear, she stroked him softly.

"I want you," she moaned into his shoulder, tempted to bite the naked flesh. The desire growing inside of her was growing strong, the need from him unbearable. Nine months without him inside of her was too long, and she didn't care about the risks, all she knew was that she needed him, right then.

Without having been told twice he was settled between her legs, watching her face to see if she had any regrets, before entering her. At first it was uncomfortable, slightly painful since she was unused to the feeling. But it quickly changed to exactly what they needed and craved. Quietly, as not to wake their son sleeping, they found their rhythm, the familiarity. When he pulled out of her she caressed the hair at the back of his head, smiling at the dazed look in his eyes and the pinkness of his cheeks.

"I've missed you," she said.

* * *

And so life went back to normal. We're getting closer to the end, that's a bit sad... There's 3-5 chapters left now. Next chapter will be up on Monday or Tuesday.


	10. 79th annual Hunger Games - Chapter 10

It's time for a new year. 5 years have gone since our first chapter. Katniss has really grown since then, huh? From a naïve 16 year old girl to a 21 year old mother. We're starting to work towards the end now, which I'm really excited to share with you, so the updates might just get closer together. I'm going to be starting on an epilogue soon, too. I usually am not so much for epilogues, but I think this story would work nicely with one.

Hope you enjoy! And woho to Jennifer Lawrence for sweeping the floor this award season. Love her ;)

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**The 79****th**** Hunger Games**

Prim watched the faces of the girls standing around her. Some were nervous, close to crying, whereas others wore a stoic face that almost looked bored. She belonged to those who wore masks, not daring to show any emotion because the slightest drop of face would make her break down. She looked behind her and into the crowd that watched the reaping. From where she stood, almost at the back of the kids being reaped, she could see her whole family, her mother with a terrified expression on her face, Gale holding Talon, preoccupied with keeping him from squirming out of his arms as he threw a fit, not wanting to stay still anymore. And then Katniss, she was torn between watching Prim, and watching her son. As their eyes met her sister mouthed 'I loved you duck', and she smiled at her, miming 'quack' back.

She kept looking through the crowd to see if she could see the boy, no man, she loved, but his blonde hair couldn't be seen amongst the sea of people with black hair. He would remain hidden at the back of the crowd, and after the reaping, if she's not picked, he would weave his way through the crowd to find her, and kiss her. That morning he had come by her house in the Seam despite what other's might've thought of it, despite it being a detour, to give her a flower and a kiss.

Jonah Mac, his father worked in the justice building, and his mother was her husband's assistant. What he wanted with a Seam girl no one had a clue, and since Jonah was his parent's only child after his older twin brothers died when they were seven, his parents could do nothing about it. They needed him to take over after his father at the justice building, and that was what made it possible for Jonah to fall for who he wanted, rather than who he should. Still, it confused people as what a Seam girl could give him that a merchant could not. None of them had met Prim, but Jonah was convinced that as soon as everyone would meet Prim they would understand. She was wonderful, great, and the next year he would marry her, and together they would have beautiful blonde children.

As Effie tapped the mike everyone turned their attention towards the stage where the bubbly strange woman was smiling widely at the unaffected crowd. No one was listening to her, they could only hear their own heartbeats picking up as the reaping grew closer and closer.

When Effie put her hand in the bowl for girls she looked over to the boys and saw Vick there, he was staring intently at the stage. She stopped breathing when Effie opened the slip to read the name, to make sure that she heard her correctly.

It was not her, it was not her, Prim thought, relieved. Until she was a young girl at the very front of the crowd move up towards the stage. Her heart broke then, a girl, a child was picked and was going to die. There was nothing to it. The boy was the same age, and the two of them stood up on stage with tears in their eyes. Both of their worst nightmares had come true, and neither of them were old enough to fight against them. Only twice in the hunger games history had anyone under fourteen won the hunger games, one of the youngest victors alive was a man who won at age 14.

Years like these, when two so young were picked, the district started mourning before the games had even started. There was no reason to hope, it wasn't plausible that one of those two children would come back alive.

Katniss watched the boy up on stage with tears welling up in her eyes. In eleven years her own little boy could stand there having to face his death with no way of getting out of it. The only thing one could hope then was a quick and painless death. One that ended his life immediately. She turned to look at her boy in Gale's arms, he was flailing and beetroot red in his face, angry at being held against his will and unable to run around like he wanted to.

"Here, I'll take him," Katniss said, taking the boy who was smashing around from Gale's arms. "I'll meet you at home, don't take more than an hour please." She gave him a quick kiss on his lips.

She quickly weaved through the crowd, her son still flailing in her arm, his will just as strong as his parent's. Katniss would've smiled at the thought, if her patience wasn't wearing thin. It had been a year since he was born, and now he was walking around on unsteady legs, unwilling to stop at any point, unless he was asleep, and even then it was a battle to get him to lay down and sleep. Wearing him in the shawl, like she used to when he was smaller wasn't doable at any other time except to walk to and from Vittor's house. She had no idea how she would've made it with Talon if she kept her job as a washer woman. Maybe Talon would've learnt how to stay put, or every part of the day would have been a fight.

As they got out of the crowd she put him down on the ground, where he sat crying for half a minute before feeling that he'd expressed his discontent with being detained enough, and stood up on shaky legs, wandering along the grass grasping at flowers and tasting them. Katniss knew that there was nothing poisonous there, so the most he would get in him was dirt, and there was no way she would test her son's anger over something as harmless as a few flowers. He quickly spat them out anyway.

This summer she would only work a few times a week, but for the same amount of money. Vittor claimed that he had given her less money over the year to cover this summer, but she knew that this was not the case. He felt guilty for what he did the previous year, leaving her new family without an income, and stretching their money tight, But she had learnt to accept money from him, because she did work for him, and she was able to justify and swallow her pride and guilt. She knew she would be able to repay him, work harder, earn the money. It was the only thing that made her accept it.

The reason why she would work much less was because Vittor wouldn't be there. She would just make sure that the house remained looking good, and stop dust from collecting on every surface of the house. What he would do in the capitol, she had no idea, but as she watched her son sit down on the ground to reach for more flowers, she thought about him up on the stage today. To others he looked like his normal cheerful self, a stark contrast beside the drunken Haymitch who looked as though he was about to return his lunch. To Katniss she could see something different, she could see the stiffness as he waved to the crowd, calculating and much too obvious. Maybe that's how he had always been, she thought, just that she hadn't known before because she didn't know him good enough. Yet it worried her, that the cheery young boy who had left the for the Capitol for the second time didn't come back. A victor's life seemed glamorous to everyone else, but the silence of a victor's house, the nightmares that he spoke about, the forced smiles and the air that had grown thicker the closer he came to returning to the Capitol, all those things told a different story.

He would never tell her what it was, never even hint at why his eyes clouded over at the mention of the Capitol. It worried her, because Vittor had become someone she respected, someone that she might come to love as a brother. She knew that whatever there was in the Capitol it was something that hurt him, and she knew that she couldn't protect him from that. And what she couldn't protect Vittor from, she couldn't protect her son from. It was completely in the hands of the Capitol. If they wanted to take her son away from her, they would.

After a while she took a hold of her son's hands and slowly led him towards their house. He wouldn't manage the whole way, but walking a part of it would tire him out for his afternoon nap. She had barely walked for a few minutes before she was stopped by Susy, the same girl who had given her advice on how to prevent a pregnancy almost three years before that.

"Hi Katniss!" She smiled widely, and before Katniss had a time to react she was drawn into a hug. "Wow, how big your little boy has gotten!" she gushed, crouching down to get down to his level, but Talon quickly sought comfort in his mother's legs, raising his arms up to be held by his mother.

"Yes, he turned one yesterday…" Katniss said, feeling both sad and relieved that he wasn't an infant anymore.

"Wow, time goes fast, my oldest boy just turned five, the youngest is turning one next month, and my two girls are turning two and three in November, it's hard to understand, it goes so fast!" Katniss nodded, trying to remember hearing about Susy having two more kids. She wondered if her husband was pulling out, or if he did it only when he wanted to. She suspected the latter. "Soon is probably time for another kid, I'll be sole handedly populating this district!" she laughed, but it was shaky and nervous.

"He isn't?" Katniss nodded her head slowly, both knowing what she meant.

"My husband?" She laughed at the suggestion. "No."

"I'm sorry," Katniss said, uncomfortable. What did you say to a woman who's husband didn't listen to her, that kept getting her pregnant despite her not wanting to?

"It is what it is," she shrugged. "It's good to see you Katniss, but I have to get home." They said goodbye and Katniss quietly watched Susy disappear in the crowd. While Susy may have had to succumb to her husband's whims, she was far from weak, and Katniss knew that. No weak woman would be able to fight through that. It was unimaginable, to her, how it would be like with a man that didn't respect your wishes, ignored them. Katniss was sure she would crack under that, be unable to go through a day without breaking down completely. As it was, Katniss was barely able to cope with a pregnancy that happened despite precautions, despite her husband respecting her, seeing her as an equal, a person. To be repeatedly impregnated against her will made her nauseous, and fearful. How could she make sure her son didn't grow up to be a man like that? She would teach him the best she could, but what would everyone else teach him? She only had so much ability to teach. What good would it do if she said one thing and ten other people said the complete opposite?

She kissed her son's forehead, breathing in his scent.

"You better grow up to be a good man, or I will never forgive myself," she whispered to him.

Talon remained in her arms happily until they got home, which was surprising, but he seemed very interested in all the people milling on the street. There were far more people out than there usually was, and he happily pointed and waved to people that walked by, which made their walk home much quicker, and Talon's nap approaching much faster.

Once Talon was down, sleeping in the corner of the room in a cot that Gale had built after Talon started crawling and wouldn't be stopped by the pillows that had prevented him from rolling down on the floor before. While he slept she prepared an early evening meal, with the reaping the whole days eating schedule had been mixed up. After only twenty minutes Gale walked in the door.

"They picked Prim to wave goodbye to the tributes by the train," he said with an eye roll. "She'll have to look excited and happy for them, she absolutely hated it, but she's too kind to say no."

"Too kind to say no?" Katniss frowned. "They didn't demand it then?" she said, with an amused smile on her face, knowing she was right.

"She's too kind to complain, then." He kissed her cheek, drawing her in for a hug, pressing her back against his chest. She leaned back, relaxing against him as his hands caressed her stomach, slowly gliding down towards the heat that started to build up inside of her. "I love you, Katniss Hawthorn." He kissed her neck slowly and gently, his tongue darting out to lick the salty skin, his hand reaching their destination and massaging her through the dress she had to wear a day like today.

She sighed, relaxing even further into his arms, her arm holding herself up as it hooked around his neck. Slowly he hiked her dress up, revealing her naked thighs.

"You are absolutely breathtaking," he said as he pulled her underwear down slightly as his hand went down her front, and his fingers finding the nub between her folds. "I love the sounds you make." She whimpered in reply. Slowly, almost painfully so, he circled the nub, eliciting low moans from her. He looked down at her in fascination, her eyes closed, eyebrows furrowed and lips puckered, begging for a kiss. There was no woman as beautiful as she was, no one as captivating, no one as close to perfect.

He slowly turned her around, placing a gentle kiss on her lips before grabbing her thighs and pulling her up against him, aligning her hips with his, drawing her in for a thorough knee melting kiss that had her nerves on alert in anticipation. He sat her down on the kitchen counter, taking her underwear off hurriedly, unbuttoning his own pants and settling himself within her.

"Without you, I'm nothing... Okay?" He kissed her, and she breathlessly opened her mouth to him, responding with open-mouthed kisses as she tried to catch her own breath.

"So never leave me then," she said. Suddenly struck by all the emotions of the day, seeing children being sent off do die. She hugged him to her as close as she could, so that she could hear his breathing. "Promise?"

"Promise," he said.

That summer she watched her son grow quickly. His cautious steps turned into him running across the grass in Vittor's backyard, the sounds he would make started to turn into actual words. He would run across the grass towards her when he had strayed too far shouting 'mamamama' to make sure that she would wait there for him. He would insist on her singing constantly, and would laugh as she hit the higher notes.

That summer Talon grew into a daddy's boy. Every morning when Gale left for work Talon would cry and run towards the door, unable to be calmed until he was distracted by the kitchen utensils that he would have scattered on the floor. It was his favorite toys, and Katniss had selected a few for him to use, ones she rarely used herself and where nothing was at risk at detaching from them. Toddler safe utensils.

He was an independent spirit, she learned, much like his mother and father, and constantly ready to explore and understand things. He would walk around the garden on the backside of Vittor's house and inspect all of the plants, sometimes pulling the petals off of the flowers, or pulling them out of the dirt, well intentioned, then he would be watching in amazement as a cat would walk by on the road. He refused to be coddled, and detested the word 'no'. Despite the regular frustrations she was breath-taken by her son's development, how he was growing.

It amazed her how almost two years ago he was only an idea, an idea that scared her more than anything did at that time, the fear hadn't disappeared, it had grown. But when she looked at her son she couldn't allow herself to be consumed by that fear. If she allowed the fear to take over she would miss her son, miss time she would never be able to replace.

That summer was also the summer where she would spend a lot of days with her mother, who was slowly starting to gain Katniss' trust back. It was a painstakingly slow process where Katniss had many doubts. It was hard to forgive the woman who almost caused her two daughter's deaths. The death of Katniss' father had hit them all hard, but what it did to her mother was something Katniss couldn't wrap her mind around. While Katniss wouldn't find it in her to see her mother as a mother figure again, having lost that in her childhood and finding it hard to return to it, her mother was a great grandmother to Talon, and Talon loved her.

Rekindling with her mother meant learning a lot more about her father, things she was too young to remember, or small things that she was too young to notice. Each time her mother spoke about her father, she would get a faraway look in her eyes as tears glistened in them. The story of how they met, and how she had fallen for him. As long as she had him she didn't care about living comfortably, or her parents' approval. All she needed was the love of her life. When he left her with two daughters and no income, she was lost. Katniss knew that without Gale she would find it hard to cope, she would hurt so incredibly, but at the same time; she had a son that needed her, and whatever grief she would feel wouldn't take away from her ability to take care of her son. She was sure of it. She had always been much more like Hazelle than her mother, the Seam blood was running through her, and she had been brought up being taught that a moment of weakness could be your own death. You weren't allowed to fall apart in the Seam, no one was there to pick you up and put you back together again.

Like most summers it passed quietly without much happening. The funeral for the two kids in the hunger games happened without much noise, and people tried to forget about it the best they could. If it wasn't June or December, the hunger games would be pushed far from people's minds.

In September Vittor arrived back, being met by a fifteen month old boy who loved giving people kisses. Vittor was showered in them, something that quickly brought a smile back to his face, one that had been absent for a long while.

"You've gotten huge, Talon!" he gushed, picking the boy up under his arm.

"Dat!" Talon exclaimed suddenly, looking at Vittor with wide and expectant eyes.

"I'm sorry buddy, I don't know what you're saying," Vittor apologized.

"He wants your hat," Katniss explained. Vittor put Talon down on the floor, and took the hat off of his head and put it on Talon's. But Talon quickly took the purple hat off of him and inspected the gold feathers that were attached to it, tasting it and then deciding that Vittor could have it back.

"Weddom," Talon said with a polite nod, and then disappeared into the living room.

"That means 'you're welcome'," Katniss explained, hurrying after her son to get his coat off of him.

"He's started speaking," Vittor said with amazement in his voice.

"Yeah, most things are 'dat', but he says you're welcome, thank you, hello and goodbye, so he's a polite kid," Katniss joked.

"He certainly didn't get that from you," Vittor said with a smile. Katniss responded with an eye roll.

"Your kitchen needs a scrub down, if you need anything I will be in there."

* * *

So I take a little inspiration to Talon's personality from my (soon) 18 month old nephew. Much like Talon he doesn't say many actual words, he just says babba about mostly everything, except "thank you", "good bye", and mamma (mom) and pappa (dad). He's incredible, I could spend a whole page just talking about him, haha.

Anyway, Susy… 4 children in 4 years! Woah. That husband of hers truly is a major ass, don't you think?

Next chapter should be up on wednesday or thursday. I have a really messed up working schedule this week so I'll be editing whenever I get the chance to.


	11. Chapter 11

Since a few updates were late I'm updating this early. There have been quite a few questions asked that I don't want to answer yet, I'll answer them at the end of this story. I feel that knowing might ruin everything. However I will assure you that Vittor is a good guy, at least in my eyes. You'll have to be the judge of that yourself.

I also got a scare for a few days when I couldn't log onto the site. Luckily I got my account linked to my gmail a few weeks ago so I could go through that route. But I have another account that I use a live adress to that I can't access anymore. Something strange is going on.

* * *

Only a week before the 79th Victor's Tour began there was a knock on the door of their house in the Seam. Katniss opened the door, expecting to find her neighbor or one of her family members. Instead she found a muscular man dressed in the pristine white peacekeeper's uniform, staring down at her behind the glass that shielded his face.

"We are doing an inspection ma'm, we're looking for weapons, do not interfere with the search in anyway, or we will detain everyone in this household " he said. Katniss halted immediately, knowing that she was in possession of weapons, but relaxed when she quickly reminded herself that she kept her bow in the woods for a reason. They hadn't even been to the fence since before Talon was born, the walk too long and always disappointing. There was no reason to venture that way, anymore.

"Okay," she said, reluctantly stepping aside to let him in. "Please be quiet, my son is asleep," she begged him. It didn't seem to bother him though, he walked with heavy feet around the small house, checking cupboards, cracks in the floor, the looser floor boards.

While he looked she glanced out of the window and saw peacekeepers milling the street, and in the house across from hers she could see a peacekeeper, as well. Inspection of every household to look for weapons. Were they worried of an uprising in the district, people rebelling against them, or was it just to instill fear and prove to them how much power they had?

She glanced up the stairs, Gale was still asleep due to the early morning. The sky was still dark, sunrise was about half an hour away, and the only reason that she had heard the knock was because she had a hard a hard time falling asleep after Talon woke up, as he usually did, in the middle of the night. She wished she could go up and wake Gale up, but she was sure that was not allowed.

Without asking the peacekeeper went up the stairs, and soon after she could hear Gale swear in confusion and her son let out a cry in protest. Soon Gale was calming him down. She listened quietly to the sounds from upstairs. There were quiet murmurs, sounds she suspected came from Gale, and Talon was nattering about something.

After a few minutes the peacekeeper returned downstairs, glaring at her. Maybe they had hoped to find weapons in here, they knew that Gale and her used to hunt, but it had been years. Surely they didn't believe that they kept their weapons in the house, anyway?

"The house is clear, but be warned, if we have any suspicions that illegal activity is going on in this house, we will detain you without questioning," the peacekeeper said. Katniss nodded numbly, not doubting his words at all. The peacekeeper looked towards the stairs. "It's also come to my attention that you've been married for three and a half years, but only given birth to one child, I highly suggest another child soon, or you will be brought in for questioning and examinations."

The peacekeeper left her there, stunned.

It was the first threat, in all the years that they had been married, this was the first time she had received a warning about children. Before it was hearsay, gossip, something that could be ignored. But a peacekeeper muttering it to her in her household, with the underlying threat of consequences, that wasn't something that could be ignored.

Numbly she climbed the steps up towards Gale and her son, who were still in bed. Talon was climbing all over Gale to get onto the mattress, where he started jumping on it while laughing wholeheartedly.

"What did they say?" Gale asked when he saw her pale face. She smiled tightly and patted her son's back, trying to draw out the answer that didn't want to form on her tongue. But he needed to know.

"We need to have another baby, Gale, one child in four years of marriage isn't enough." Her voice was thick.

"Okay," Gale said, slowly sitting up to face her. He reached out and touched her cheek. "Katniss, we can do it, another baby like Talon, look at him, that would be amazing." The two of them watched their son as he kept himself busy, sliding off of the bed to run towards the corner where a few homemade toys were laying.

"It doesn't matter anyway," she said, feeling the tears press against the back of her eyes. "I don't think our pregnancy prevention is working that well." Tears started rolling down her cheeks, betraying her otherwise calm expression.

"You're pregnant?" he asked, she only answered with a nod. "Since when?"

"My period is almost a week late, I'm already feeling nauseous…" They looked at their son playing in the corner. "By the end of the summer he'll be a big brother."

Knowing that she was pregnant this time, she understood the signs of pregnancy that kept coming. This time the nausea was the most prominent symptom that sometimes had her throwing up multiple times a day. With her pregnancy with Talon she had never thrown up, just had strong bouts of nausea. It was hard to keep her pregnancy hidden when she was for big parts of the day shoving her head down Vittor's toilet.

When Vittor congratulated her she felt confusion. Didn't he, of all people, understand why you wouldn't want to have a child in a country like theirs? Especially since the day he found out was the day the Victory Tour began in their district. However, he still had a smile on his face, and hugged her like it was the best thing that had happened that year. Maybe it was because he was a Merchant, he did not understand the hardships of growing up in the Seam, but he too was a part of the reaping, he even went into the hunger games. The Capitol had stolen his carefree smile, the glimmer in his eyes, yet when she told him that she was pregnant he was happy, ecstatic.

Maybe all that he could see was a toddler, not a child that would be reaped?

The morning of the arrival of the winner from district four she helped Vittor get ready. He would be attending the dinner afterwards, one she would help serve due to her maid position. There were shortages of maids in the district, due to it being so small, and the ones who can afford a maid were far fewer. That meant that there were only two houses that had servants, and the rest had maids. It would give all the maid's a nice bonus in their pockets, too.

"Are you nervous?" Vittor asked as both of them got ready to leave for the festivities. Despite feeling like a mess, she shook her head. "Liar."

"Come on, let's go," she said. Talon was with Gale that day, which she was thankful for. "We're going to be late."

The square was crowded when they got there, and if Vittor hadn't been a previous victor he would have remained on the side streets watching everything on the big screen with her. He left her standing at the back of the crowd, which she was thankful for since big crowds didn't ease her nausea, and then weaved through the throngs of people.

At the back of the crowd was where children played, those too small to understand or be able to stand still. They ran up and down the streets, playing with random objects that they could find and some were fighting over their toys while mother's watched carefully. She wondered on what street Gale was on with Talon, and if Talon was playing happily by himself, like he usually was, or if he'd be sharing with someone. Most probably he was inspecting the cold wet snows that was lying in drifts up against the buildings. She missed her son, she thought.

The victor did his speech, and soon after the crowd started to disperse. While most were making their way from the justice building, she started walking towards it. She got to the back entrance rather quickly and was let in by the janitor who was assigned to let the right people in.

The food that was served was in quantities she had never seen before. While she recognized most of the dishes she thought the way they were served seemed far too extravagant, and unnecessary to do with food that would soon be eaten, anyway.

She was told who to serve, the victor's mentor and one of his stylists, and their placing. It was important to give the right dish to the right person, and that everyone knew where they were going to avoid confusion that would reflect badly on the district. Of course, Katniss didn't understand how, but there was no reason to ask questions.

At the end of the dinner everyone from district four, along with the notables from district twelve, were mingling. That meant that Katniss, and the other serves' jobs were to walk around with trays of drinks in their hand. Only half of them were needed to do this, while the other half kept clearing off the room and keeping it clean. Katniss was one of the girls with a tray.

When she walked by the male mentor, Finnick, from four he stopped her, wearing a sly smirk on his face.

"Excuse me, I have a few questions," he said, and she eyed him carefully.

"Okay," she said, deciding that he wasn't intending any harm.

"How come a district this small always have so many servers around?" He sounded amused.

"Most of us are maids," she said.

"Ah, that explains it, you're a maid too?" she nodded. "Fascinating." The tone of his voice betrayed that he did not think it was fascinating at all. "You must be Vittor's maid then," he said.

"How did you know?" Her eyebrows furrowed.

"There are certain things a person of my position must know." He took a glass from her tray and took a sip of the liquid, while giving her a wink. "If you could describe him in three words, and be honest because I won't tell on you, what would they be?"

"Why are you asking?" He sighed.

"It's important for me to know who I am surrounding myself with," he said.

"He's kind, generous and… I guess sad," she answered honestly. Finnick nodded, a tight smile on his lips.

"Thank you…"

"Katniss."

"Thank you, Katniss, your help has been greatly appreciated." With that the handsome victor from four walked away from her, a small spring in his steps. She was slightly confused, but suspected that maybe people were different in other districts, maybe they had different social codes?

Being pregnant while taking care of a toddler was much different than being pregnant without one. When she was pregnant with Talon she could take a break at the end of the day, sleep the whole night, and go to the bathroom as often as she pleased. Talon made that difficult. She knew that it was much better than spending the rest of her life in prison, though.

Her stomach grew, jutting out and revealing itself to the world sooner than it had done with Talon, something her mother explained could happen when you're having your second child. It was not something she enjoyed, it was exactly the opposite. She remembered the stares, looks and the people who would come up to talk to her randomly from when she was pregnant with Talon, and she wasn't looking forward to that happening again. She hoped that she would be spared the gruesome stories this time when she was walking with a toddler next to her. She'd experienced child birth already, so she didn't need the horrible stories that people wanted to tell her. Not that she needed them before, either.

It didn't stop them, however, it only made them want to share birth stories, and stories of the grueling nights of the newborn period. No matter how disinterested Katniss made herself look, seem, or how little she contributed to the conversations, people still kept them going until she swore to Gale that she wasn't going to go into town again until she had this baby. He would have to run the errands.

Prim turned eighteen in March, and Katniss couldn't believe that her baby sister was getting so big. Had it been six years since her first reaping? Her heart constricted as she thought of what Prim had ahead of her. While being an adult was nothing like being a tribute in the hunger games, it was far from easy and she dreaded seeing her sister go through with it. But, Prim wanted what the Capitol wanted them to have; a husband, children; a quiet life. So maybe adulthood would be easier for her, easier to accept.

In only a few weeks, right after the reaping, she would marry her boyfriend, Jonah, and move into a Merchant house, just where she belonged, leaving their mother behind in an empty house.

Katniss wanted to both thank and strangle Jonah. Thank him for getting Prim out of the Seam, and strangle him for taking her sister away from her, and ending her childhood. In her eyes Prim would always be twelve years old with two braids in her hair and her shirt sticking out from her skirt. Her duck. But soon there would only be one Everdeen left, the daughters of the household taking their husband's name and giving their children them, as well.

She sat in her childhood home next to her sister, one arm wrapped around her shoulder after they finished dinner, listening to her mother's stories of how Prim was like as a baby, and how Katniss reacted to becoming an older sister after four years of being an only child. She didn't like sharing her mother and father with anyone, and had asked her parents if they were really sure that they needed another child. And yes, they were completely sure to Katniss' dismay.

She wondered how Talon would react to being an older brother, he was so young so he hadn't gotten used to being an only child yet.

"Maybe next year I'll have a baby," Prim said smiling as she waved Katniss off, but Katniss couldn't share her happiness. Her baby sister was much too young to be a mother, in Katniss' eyes, Katniss was twenty when Talon was born and that was young enough. Her sister becoming a mother at eighteen or nineteen was scary. While she was more nurturing, always drawn to children and caretaking, she was still so young in Katniss' mind. It was scary to let go of the image of Prim as a child and get used to the idea of her as an adult. She wasn't ready for it, but she had to be.

Her wedding was in thirteen weeks.

The closer the summer came, the more often Vittor would travel to the Capitol. He seemed to be torn between trepidation and excitement over each trip, as if he was unsure if he was happy or scared about going. The smiles that had started to grow less over the years started to return more and more after each trip, despite the looming three month stay in the Capitol that would leave him almost feeling dead inside. Katniss liked it, Talon loved it. He found a playmate in Vittor that almost made him equal to his parents. Almost. Because when he fell and hurt himself he always ran to his mom or dad for comfort. That made it a little more okay for Katniss, she could handle him getting his independency and finding playmates elsewhere as long as her son returned to her, and sought comfort in her. As long as he didn't turn her away.

Katniss' favorite part about being pregnant was the sex. When she was pregnant with Talon she hadn't felt an increase or decrease in her need for it, but with this baby she craved her husband all the time. She loved how he pressed up against her, holding her close, and she loved the intimacy of him not having to pull out, just keep himself inside of her as he orgasmed. It made everything so much better, so much more incredible. They didn't have to worry, or fear anything

Pregnancy was much easier to handle when she knew what to expect, more or less. She knew that it was going to get heavy, that the kicks were going to hurt, that it would hurt. To be prepared made it manageable. And Katniss liked things manageable.

"What do you say, mister, is it a boy or a girl this time?" she asked Gale. He was spooning her and pressing his hand over a spot that the baby favored to kick.

"Girl," he said.

"What about you Talon, boy or girl?"

"Boy," Talon said, matter-of-factly.

"Hm, I guess it'll be a surprise then," Katniss mused.

"You're not going to guess?" Gale poked her in her side, where she was ticklish. She jerked away from him giggling.

"No, I'll be wrong anyway," she said, sulking.

"So say what you don't think then."

"Boy, then."

"I knew you'd think it was a girl too!"

"Shut up, Gale."

"Suddup!" Talon mimicked. Katniss put a hand in front of her mouth to stop herself from laughing.

"You taught our son to swear." Gale let out a hearty laugh. "I always thought that would be my fault."

"Oh, you have plenty of time to teach him more bad words, so I'm not worried," she teased him. Talon grew impatient of their bickering and decided to crawl up on his mother and rest his head against her stomach, poking the baby inside, laughing when he got a small poke back.

* * *

Some of you guessed it. She got pregnant again! It was sort of obvious maybe, but I've been smiling every time someone mentioned it in a review. So. Next chapter: 80th Hunger Games. What will the 80th year bring us? Hmm.

I've written the epilogue now, so there's definitely going to be one. A teaser: it's in 1st person. Might answer a few questions you've had during this story? *secretive laugh*

**Next update will be on Sunday. **Morning shifts = easier to update.


	12. 80th annual Hunger Games - Chapter 12

This comes a bit early but I couldn't help myself. Last chapter was a bit dull but I needed all of those things to happen in that chapter so this chapter could happen... You'll probably understand at the end of this. I just needed to post this chapter, okay?

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**The 80****th**** Hunger Games**

Katniss stood on a side street with Talon, watching him run around while she stood in the shadow fanning herself in the heat. Next to her stood several equally pregnant women who seemed to feel the same as she did. This was one of her least favorite parts of pregnancy. Next to Talon stood Gale and Posy who were trying to engage him in some other play other than digging a hole in the dirt, but he refused to do anything besides the play that was currently completely soiling his pants. He was so concentrated on his digging that when Effie Trinket's voice started to boom out in the speakers he started crying immediately, and a few other kids did the same.

"Aw, did you get scared?" Gale asked Talon, stroking his back in hopes to calm him down. "Don't worry, it's just Effie Trinket." Just Effie Trinket seemed like lying to his son, but he was two and didn't deserve to know about death just yet. He was too young.

Gale and Katniss watched the screen carefully, it was Vick's and Prim's last year in the reaping bowl, next year neither of them would have to fear anyone they loved being picked. Posy wouldn't go in the bowl until the 82nd hunger games, which was two years away.

When a young girl was chosen, no one had time to see how old she was, something unexpected happened. A girl at the very back of the crowd ran forward shouting that she wanted to volunteer, a calm expression on her face, not at all looking as if she was about to enter the hunger games. From the whispers beside her she learnt that she was the smith's daughter, not quite a merchant but definitely not a part of the Seam.

People didn't know how to react, and the applauds where uncertain. Why did an 18 year old, who was otherwise free from the bowl, volunteer instead of a young girl who wasn't a part of her family?

The boy that was chosen's name was barely finished being said when an 18 year old boy rushed forward, also volunteering. Everyone looked around at each other, confused about what was going on. The district never had volunteers, and two volunteers the same year was hard to imagine. A smith's daughter and a merchant boy. Who would have expected it.

Up on stage both their names were announced; Petter Molinas and Hyacinth Nord.

Everyone stared wide-eyed, what had just happened?

That night on the TV the commentators were just as amazed by the volunteering couple from district twelve, and no one knew what to make of them. Neither did the people in the district. The peacekeepers were walking around on the streets much more than they usually would, people watched each other nervously from their porches, and several people wondered if they were dreaming.

"Maybe we'll have another victor," Katniss said after she had put Talon down for the night.

"Just because they volunteered doesn't mean they'll win Katniss," Gale said, pulling her back down to earth again.

"It's a much bigger chance than with two twelve year olds from the Seam." Katniss grew annoyed with him. Couldn't he, for once, have faith in their district? When they had been given such a change, a necessary change, why don't celebrate it?

"I don't want to get my hopes up, Katniss, in 80 years we've only had three victors." He sighed, resting his head in his arms.

"You don't have to squash my hopes just because of that," she grumbled, annoyed.

No one seemed to escape the fact that what happened in district twelve was unusual, it just didn't happen. A district like twelve was supposed to subordinate, weak, a certain victim in the games. Not providing what looked like career tributes, ready for a fight. At the chariot rides the following night the twelve tributes were dressed in the regular mining outfits, yet somehow they managed to stand out anyway. Everyone knew who they were, and everyone were amazed by their mere presence.

Katniss watched with fascination she hadn't had about the games before, wondering what had made them volunteer. She wanted to ask Vittor, but he was far away in the Capitol, working with these two kids who shook everything up.

Prim married the day after the chariot rides. Like a Merchant girl she wore a white dress to the wedding, and there was a ceremony to celebrate them. Katniss was dressed in the finest dress she had even worn, so unlike the rough textiles that she was used to, and instead of scratching her skin as she moved it glided softly over it. She felt naked in it, exposed. While it was nice to wear, it was uncomfortable in that way.

Prim was a glowing bride, hugging her groom as soon as she reached him at the end of the isle, and the two of them looked at each other like they had found gold. Unlike Katniss' reason to marry Gale, their reason was out of pure love, one that knew no bounds. While the love Katniss had to Gale now was in no way measurable, and ran such depths that scared the life out of her, they hadn't looked like that on their wedding day. Their love grew slowly over time, like a small fire in a fireplace that slowly started to blossom up enough to heat up a whole house.

It comforted Katniss to see that Prim was loved just as much as she deserved, and that was all that she could ask for. Whatever came after this, her sister had pure love once, she had that to fall back on, a husband who worshiped her. They would handle it, she could see it on their faces. Their love was strong, and she didn't have to worry. Not as much, at least.

The morning of the interviews she was woken up early by Talon who had crawled out of bed and was playing on the floor. She watched him for a while, trying to get the sleep out of her eyes, but was much to lazy to get out of bed. He turned two that day, and started to look so big.

"Here," he said, giving her one of his toys. "Mommy sing," he said with a lisp. She smiled groggily and sat up.

"What do you want me to sing?" she asked, picking him up and sitting him down in her lap, but he immediately squirmed out of her lap.

"Happy!" he exclaimed, and began trying to sing the song he had requested, but few words were right, or words at all. She joined in with him, whispering the song so that Gale wouldn't wake up. When the song was finished she was asked to sing it again, and again, and again. After a while she asked Talon if he wanted to help prepare breakfast for daddy instead, which he happily agreed with.

Together they made breakfast, the boring flat bread made out of the cheap grains that they got in the tesserae before. Prim had left her some cheese the night before for them to eat with their bread. Her goat's cheese was the best thing in the whole district to eat, and she was always looking forward to tasting them. She hoped that Prim would keep her goat, maybe get even more, now that she lived in town. She could even open up a shop with these cheeses, she was that good at it.

She gave Talon a piece of cheese for him to chew on while she prepared the bread, it always tasted best when it was still hot out of the oven and didn't have a chance to grow hard. It only had to be in the oven for little over fifteen minutes, so if Gale woke up soon he'd be down just in time for the bread when it was at its best.

"Can you imagine, Talon, you're two years old!" She bent down as far as she could, placing a kiss on top of his head, her fingers had dough stuck to them so she couldn't hug him as she wanted to. "You know what, two years ago your mommy was in really bad pain."

"But you did great, despite it," Gale said, coming down the stairs.

"That's what it looked like, yes." She rolled her eyes at him.

"Happy birthday baby," he said, picking Talon up and giving him a big hug. "You're a big boy now, huh?" He shook him in his arms, causing him to giggle loudly. "You're looking big, too," he said to her.

"Yeah, but not the right kind of huge." He brushed her stomach as he kissed her cheek.

"I think so," he said.

"Mhm, sure."

Gale had to work, but both Katniss and Prim had the day off so they went a bit away to a part of the district where there was only grass to have a picnic. Talon ran over the grass chasing butterflies and small birds having the time of his life, while Prim shared some of the food from her Merchant house. They ate freshly baked bread with cheese and bell peppers, it wasn't dry or tasteless like the food they ate usually was. The bread was moist and the bell peppers tasted fresh and sweet. It was the perfect lunch for a second birthday.

Prim played with Talon in the grass as Katniss watched in the shadows. She wondered how Prim would be as a mother, how her children would look and if their children would have a good relationship. She hoped so. If their children grew up and didn't like each other she would be sad, she knew she'd love Prim's children just as much as her own. They would be just as wonderful.

She was lying down on the floor with Talon asleep on her chest as she watched the watched the final interviews before the games began. She was more focused on Talon's puckered lips and Gale explaining what he and some men had been talking about at work that day, and how Vick was doing down in the mines.

District one through four were charismatic, blinding with smiles, seducing or drawing you in with their mysteriousness. The others were bleak messes, some barely able to speak loud enough to be heard, and some watching the crowd with a terrified expression covering their faces.

Caesar was joking with the district eleven boy, who must have been fourteen or fifteen, no older because his face looked so much like a child, and his body was gangly. When he laughed it was nervous, almost bordering on a cry. It pained her so much to see him, just a boy, someone's son, sitting there knowing that he might be dead by the same time tomorrow.

She brushed Talon's hair out of his face, wishing so bad she could keep him two years old forever. She could deal with the tantrums, waking up at night, the hardships in communication, as long as he would remain young, innocent and oblivious of struggles forever. She would give anything for that.

When she looked up at the TV again Caesar was introducing Hyacinth, with a loud cheer from the audience.

But it wasn't Hyacinth that stepped out on stage.

Up on the stage stood Vittor, a guarded expression on his face. He walked quickly towards the center of the stage as the audience gasped and erupted in loud conversation of wondering what was going on. Katniss and Gale stared at each other in shock, knowing something awful was going to happen.

"Hyacinth and Petter won't be participating in the hunger games, they have escaped to district 13, along with the rest of the tributes, district 13 still exists, it is.. ." Before anything more could be said, Vittor was being dragged off of the stage, the crowd could be heard shouting.

Before the screen turned black Panem got to see Vittor Myle be shot on national television. Something that most probably was never intended to bee seen.

Katniss looked at Gale with wide eyes, wondering how Vittor could do that, how he could sacrifice himself like that. He didn't just end his own life, he put other's lives in jeopardy. How would the Capitol react to this? They would surely become even more strict, imposing themselves on people's lives even more, setting up more rules. And how were they able to escape, they were just on TV a few minutes ago, everyone but 12? And what about the images of 13, those they were shown regularly? How could anything still be there?

"Shit," she said. Gale nodded, unable to process what it was that just happened. Up until that moment everything had happened like it should, nothing betrayed their plan. How many was in on it? Was it just a fluke, something they had decided on a whim? It couldn't have been. Hyacinth and Petter must have volunteered because they were going to do this, because they had no intention of returning.

Outside on the street she could hear people screaming at each other, some upset other joyous. There had never been this much noise in the district.

"Go look," Katniss said to Gale. He walked to the window to look out and see what was going on, and then turned back to her.

"They just seem to be talking now," he said. "But it's probably best to stay inside, wait and see what happens."

He sat down next to her on the blanket, leaning down to kiss her.

"It's going to be alright, he spoke kind words about you, people won't turn you down… they won't be Vittor, but they will give you a job." He stroked her cheek, and then rubbed their son's back. "We're going to be fantastic. Vittor was an idiot, he knew what he was doing and he should have given you some sort of warning…"

"Yeah… can you take Talon? I have to sit up." He picked Talon up and rested him in his arms.

"Maybe we should put him in bed." Gale chuckled.

"No, not yet," Katniss said, stroking her son's hair. "Remember when he was a little baby, he fit so easily in our arms, and now he's so big, I get scared of how quickly he grows." She kissed her son's forehead. "I don't ever want to be alive to see him die."

"I love you Katniss," Gale said. "Regardless of what happens, thank you for giving me my son."

"I love you too." She smiled sadly. Hardships were coming, they both knew that. Without Katniss working and two children, things would be incredibly hard, but they would just have to do it. They had no choice. There was no option to not do it. It was doing it or die not doing it.

"Come on, let's go to bed," Gale said, awkwardly standing up with his son still in his arms. Katniss followed, just as awkwardly getting onto her feet. She looked at the two of them, reaching for Talon again, and pulling him into her arms. She was addicted to his smell, to his heavy head against her chest.

They hadn't even reached the stairs when they heard it, and felt it. The ground shook beneath them, only seconds after the blast. It sounded like a mine explosion, but far more shallow. It happened again, and both of them knew that it wasn't a mine explosion.

Quickly they ran across their house, and out of the door, seeing hundreds of people like them running. Some people were carrying several children in their arms, others were trailing behind wailing in fear. Everywhere it was chaos, people were trying to run but no one knew where they could run. The fence was on, no one could get through it, they were trapped.

"Gale, Gale," Katniss yelled, the explosions growing closer and hovercrafts looming not so far away. "Take Talon and run, run to grass, run and hide under trees, run quick!" She gasped. Gale didn't need to be told twice. He pulled Talon from her arms, roughly, and he ran ahead. Talon had woken up by the explosions. There was too much noise. As Gale ran she could see Talon screaming mommy as tears ran down his cheeks, his arms reaching up and out towards her when Gale disappeared ahead of her. She couldn't hear anything but the wailing of everyone around her, the deafening sounds of the explosions.

She never wanted to be alive to see her son die, she had said.

She saw Gale running as fast as he could, towards the grass where Prim and Katniss had celebrated Talon's second birthday earlier that day.

Just as she thought they were going to be out of her sight, seconds before he turned around the corner of a house to take a shortcut towards the grass in a shallow wood area the bomb hit them.

Katniss was almost thrown backwards with the blast, and with the realization that not only was her husband in there, so was her precious baby boy hit her straight in the chest, toppling her over. Her innocent son who was her world, who was everything. They boy she had wished would stay little forever.

The pain hit her like nothing else, crippled her legs, they wouldn't move. The pain clawed at her heart, the scream that tore from her mouth didn't even feel like it came from her. Her body was detaching itself from her brain. She watched the houses burn not so far ahead of her. Eaten by flames as people around her ran around, not knowing where to go. Not having anywhere to go.

She didn't hear the bomb that struck down next to her, gone long before it could reach her senses.

"_Promise you__'__ll never leave me.__"__ She rose up on her elbows to look down on him._

"_I promise Catnip,__"__ he said, stroking the hair out of her face. He loved seeing her without the braid, seeing her hair wild and free, with her cheeks still rosy after sex. __"__I promise I will do everything in my power to never leave you.__"__ He reached up and kissed her on her lips._

"_That__'__s all I__'__m asking.__"_

"_You have to promise me the same, to not leave me.__"_

"_I promise that I will do everything in my power to always stay with you,__"__ she said and kissed him._

* * *

I hope you don't hate me now... hehe. Epilogue will be up sometime next week. I wrote it earlier this week. If there are any question I haven't answered in that epilogue that a lot of you ask I will try to incoporate it into the story. If that isn't possible I'll either reply to you personally or I will answer them at the end of the epilogue :)

**END NOTES**:

Initially I began this story because I itched to tell the Hunger Games from a different perspective and explore the universe that Collins left open. I was taking a class at university that brought up many of these struggles for women, where the society was pro-natalist, even at the expense of women's lives, because they wanted a strong population to protect and provide for them (aka men). This along with the general opression from the Capitol brought this idea. After writing for a while I realized the ending this story must have.

The rebellion would have happened, even if Katniss wasn't in the games. She sped the rebellion up by doing what she did, but ultimately someone had to take that role. This story hints at certain times that there are uncertainties in other districts, which is why the fence gets turned on, the rules get stricter and the inspection for weapons happen. Because none of them are privy to information that would make them connect the dots, they are left in the dark. I suspect that in the end of Catching Fire few people knew exactly why their district was being targeted, after all it was a joint effort between many people, and few understood the grander scale of what things where happening on.

As I wrote the last chapter I honestly felt my heart break. I have a nephew who is only a little bit younger than what Talon is at the end of this story and it hit too close to home to have Talon die. However in this story I felt that it was necessary to tell it right, not to tell it… too unrealistically.

The beginning poem I used might have spoiled this ending a bit, if you think of it along with the title. In the end of the Mockingjay Katniss talks about people being buried in the meadow, and in this story she turns out as one of those people buried there. The poem, in relation to this story, means that this fire (rebellion) would have blossomed up regardless, and would have happened even without the aid of the star crossed lovers.

I hope you enjoyed the story, and I hope you don't hate Vittor too much. You know that he meant well, just as those who rebelled in Catching Fire did when they organized their "breaking out" of the arena. Vittor did indeed work the way Finnick did. He was also a rebellious part of the Hunger Games. He was happy when he got picked, and shook up the dynamics. The reason he smiled was because he understood what Peeta did, but much earlier: it was a game in more ways than one. During his games he showed the kindness that Katniss showed in her Hunger Games, which was a part of the reason why Katniss seemed so… rebellious. It wasn't just the berries with her. Katniss and Gale were too wrapped up in their grieving process to see everything and see what Vittor did in the Games.

When Finnick came to the district he asked Katniss what she thought about Vittor to see if Vittor could be included in the plans of rebelling against the Capitol. Finnic was happy about what he heard and introduced Vittor. Since Vittor already was a rebellious spark, and had little to live for, he sacrificed himself. He couldn't live with what he had done, and decided to take the fall. He didn't know that the Capitol would target his district, he was too caught up in his plan of revenge.

I hope that explains some of it.

I hope you enjoyed the story.

Please don't hate me.


	13. EPILOGUE

_**EPILOGUE**_

Dear Katniss,

It's been years, I still can't believe that you are gone. Some days I want to believe that you and Gale took off into the woods with Talon, that you are still living out there. It would've been exactly what the two of you wanted; a life in the wild, feeding yourselves and being completely free. The life in the District never suited the two of you.

I miss you, I guess that's the most important thing to tell you now. Despite having moved on, despite having my own family now with Jonah, I let my eyes wander over to the place where the Seam used to be. If you thought our district was small then, you should see it now. Five hundred people survived the bombing, only three hundred returned. I look over there and I imagine you and Talon sitting on the porch, as you would on summer days when I would come over to visit you. I think of Talon's smile, and the adoration in your eyes that appeared whenever you looked at him.

Do you remember the last thing you said to me that day it happened, on Talon's birthday? You were walking away from me with Talon on your hip, and when you turned around you had that beautiful smile on your face. You never understood just how beautiful you were, that it was why you got away with so much. You shouted to me "See you on Sunday!" and then you disappeared around the corner. That was the last time I saw you. That Sunday was when I first arrived in 13, after hiding with Jonah for days behind a rock.

Vick says that someone as beautiful as you could never age. Your beauty that radiated from inside of your bones was so incredible and so potent that it couldn't last a whole lifetime. It hurts less to view it like that. I hadn't expected him to survive. But Posy and Vick are here. Vick said that Hazelle went to find our mother, but was never seen again. Mother didn't survive. There were so many people that died that day, Katniss. People who sacrificed themselves to save others, who threw themselves into houses that were on fire to try to save just one person. There are so many stories, so many people missing. Whole families have disappeared. We're supposed to be thankful that we survived, but I'm not thankful all days, because I miss you so much.

Jonah told me to write this letter to you, he is so kind to me. He is the best husband I could ever ask for, and he is an amazing father to our children. We have three children. Rosemary was born during the war against the capitol, and she kept me out of it and safe in the bunkers of 13. Basil was born the year after we returned to 12, and Kale two years after that. Now we have protection against pregnancy, the thing you always wished to have. Maybe you would call it insanity, or maybe you would understand now that the threat of the games being gone, but we want more kids. We want a lot of them. It is so quiet here now, we need the noise, the children, it's what keeps us from going insane. Kale looks so much like you, he is only three years old but he is you. Maybe there is a piece of you in him?

I wish there was something that I could say to bring you back, but I have to accept that you are gone. There are days where the thought of you not being here anymore makes it hard for me to get out of bed. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking I heard you screaming for me to come help you. Other times I am sure that the bombs are raining down on our district again.

There are so many things that I wished that you could experience. I wish that you could experience real freedom. I wish that I could take you to one of our trips to the sea side, where Jonah would teach you how to fish. I wish that I could show you the vast fields in what used to be 11. I wish that the two of us could hop on the train in the middle of the winter and take it down south to where it is warmer. I wish that I could show you how Rosemary smiles, how Basil furrows his eyebrows as he concentrates and Kale on his constant adventures.

There are also so many things that I wished that I would have been able to see. Talon would have turned ten this year, the child you were pregnant with would have turned eight, your 30th birthday is next week. I wished I would have been able to see that, see you blow out your candles on the birthday cake I would have baked you. Would you have taught my children how to shoot an arrow? I know Kale would have loved that, if he was a bit older.

You deserved this life that I have now. The house we live in, the fresh air that we breathe, the freedom that we have. You deserved to know what it's like to be able to bake a cake for a birthday, to have food on the table every night, to go to the store and find fresh produce that you can buy. You deserved to be able to walk straight into the forest and not have to come back before anyone notices that you are gone. You fought so hard for everything, and I wished that you would have been able to get this break.

Why did you have to die?

It's been eight years Katniss, and I can no longer trick myself that you are living out in the forest anymore. There is only so long you can go on denying it. Still, in my mind, you are out there with Talon, your baby and Gale. You are laughing, you are happy, you are free. You are exactly where you are supposed to be.

Katniss, we won't see each other on Sunday, but they've been telling me that there might be an afterlife, and I want to believe that. So we won't see each other on Sunday, or next week, or anytime soon, but we will see each other eventually. Will you meet me then? Will you show me the way, show me how your life is? Will you introduce me to your children again? Because I'm afraid they won't know who I am.

Katniss, I love you. I love you. I love you. It still hurts to think of you, so I hope you don't hate me for forgetting about you sometimes. I've forgotten your scent, I've forgotten your laugh, your face has started to slip from my memory. But did you know that there is a picture of you left? From my wedding. You are standing there beside me, your face glowing and your smile the biggest ever remember it ever being. When I start to forget I look at it, and every time I wonder how someone like you could just slip away.

There are so many things I want to tell you, I could write a whole book about it, but the most important things I want to say are these; I miss you, I am good now, I wish you were here.

And then… The hardest thing of all to say to you. The phrase I never wanted to be completely true;

Goodbye Katniss.  
_Love,  
Your sister Prim_

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I want to thank everyone who has reviwed, favorited, and subscribed to this story, everyone who has clicked in and read this story. It means a lot. This was the first story I wrote, and finished, in about 2 years, so it was a big big thing for me. It's also the first fanfic I've finished since very early 2009 (so essentially 4 years).

Some people wondered if Katniss and Gale died/survived, and they did die... And yes, it's sad that Gale just took off like that, but Talon was their #1 priority and Katniss being heavily pregnant meant that she couldn't run that fast. They both knew how much they loved their son, and knew that they wouldn't forgive themselves for hesitating. Katniss definitely would have forgiven him for taking off just like that. Katniss and Gale are survivors and they make people survive with no regards to themselves. They sacrifice their lives for who they love, and that's why...

Anyway, I really enjoyed reading this story. I usually don't do any recs in my fics, but there is one that I re-read yesterday when I couldn't sleep, and it made me cry the second time I read it too. Anyway, it's called The Wild Ones, the url after the ff . net is s/8156259/1/The-Wild-Ones. It's kind of Cato/Katniss (depending on how you read it), but I swear to you it's the best HG fanfic I have read.


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